NIH Biostatistics and the Reformation of Modern Medicine

This is the second annual Victoria A. Harden Lecture in NIH History. Speaker Christopher Phillips is Professor of History in Carnegie Mellon University’s History Department, where he is also Department Head. LECTURE SUMMARY: Between 1930 and 1980, statistical concepts became essential for clinicians and medical researchers alike. At the heart of this transformation was a group of statisticians at NIH. Primarily trained in economics and demography, this group introduced measures that revolutionized how researchers establish the causes of disease and the effectiveness of purported treatments. The group also played a key role in the transformation of statistics more broadly, showing the importance of a close connection between theory and application and establishing the field as far more open to underrepresented groups long denied places in academic mathematics. This talk helps situate the rise of biostatistics as one of the most important historical developments of the recent past, particularly in its links to evidence-based, personalized- and precision-medicine.
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