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Description as a research goal

Every study reports descriptive statistics, like the average age of the people in it, usually in Table 1. Descriptive research is a different thing. Its goal is to characterize a population: how common a health status, an exposure, or a practice is in a well-defined group, and how that varies across subgroups and over time. That makes the sample the hard part. It has to be large enough, and close enough to the population, to support a valid and precise claim about the group.

Also covered: descriptive epidemiology · people, place, and time · knowledge, attitudes, and practices · target population · Demographic and Health Surveys · modern contraceptive use in Nepal