R: An Open Source Alternative for Statistical Research in Public Health

Author: Raghu K Mittal

Abstract: The public health researcher essentially needs statistical tools for doing research. Analysis of data can be done by various proprietary software tools like SPSS, Stata, SAS, but these tools come at a huge cost. Nowadays, various quality open source tools for statistics are available which are free for anyone to use. In this paper, we explore the usage of such an open source statistical language called R and its viability as an alternative to proprietary software for research in Public Health.