Measures of Central Tendency

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NEET PG High-Yield: Central Tendency

Measures of central tendency (averages) are fundamental to Biostatistics. Understanding when to use which is essential for interpreting clinical data.

Summary Table

Measure Definition / Use Case
Mean Arithmetic average. Sensitive to outliers. Used for normal distributions.
Median The middle value (50th percentile). Not affected by outliers. Used for skewed distributions.
Mode Most frequently occurring value. Used for categorical/qualitative data.
High-Yield NEET PG Pearls:

  • Skewed Distributions: In a positively skewed distribution, the sequence is Mode < Median < Mean.
  • Outliers: If a dataset has extreme outliers (e.g., income, survival time), the median is the best measure.
  • Normal Curve: In a perfect normal distribution, Mean = Median = Mode.
  • Mathematical Properties: The sum of deviations of all values from the mean is always zero.