StATS: What is a population?

A collection of items of interest in research. The population represents a group that you wish to generalize your research to. Populations are often defined in terms of demography, geography, occupation, time, care requirements, diagnosis, or some combination of the above. Contrast this with a definition of a sample. An example of a population would be:

• all infants born in the state of Missouri during the 1995 calendar year who have one or more visits to the Emergency room during their first year of life.

This page was written by Steve Simon while working at Children's Mercy Hospital. Although I do not hold the copyright for this material, I am reproducing it here as a service, as it is no longer available on the Children's Mercy Hospital website. Need more information? I have a page with general help resources. You can also browse for pages similar to this one at Category: Definitions, Category: Hypothesis testing.