An easy-to-use computer program for standardisation methods of population morbidity data

Abstract

Standardisation is an essential procedure to eliminate the effect of confounding when comparisons between populations are carried out, where a standard population is used as a reference. There are two methods of standardisation, i.e., direct and indirect standardisation. Standardisation is commonly used in epidemiology studies especially when the morbidity or/and mortality rates of a disease are studied. A computer program (StdAn) which aims to simplify the process of standardisation of population morbidity data was developed with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express software, using C++/CLI (C++ on common language infrastructure) as the programming language. StdAn program provides a graphically easy-to-use interface for the implementation of standardisation analysis. It is simple, practical and easy to interpret.