Almost all
educational programs in biostatistics
are at the postgraduate level. They are
most often found in schools of public
health, affiliated with schools of
medicine, forestry, or agriculture, or
as a focus of application in departments
of statistics. In the United
States where several universities have
dedicated biostatistics departments,
many other top-tier universities
integrate biostatistics faculty into
statistics or other departments, such as
epidemiology. Thus, departments carrying
the name "biostatistics" may exist under
quite different structures. For
instance, relatively new biostatistics
departments have been founded with a
focus on bioinformatics and
computational biology whereas older
departments, typically affiliated with
schools of public health will have more
traditional lines of research involving
epidemiological studies and clinical
trials as well as bioinformatics. In
larger universities where both a
statistics and a biostatistics
department exist, the degree of
integration between the two departments
may range from the bare minimum to very
close collaboration. In general, the
difference between a statistics program
and a biostatistics program is twofold:
(i) statistics departments will often
host theoretical/methodological research
which are less common in biostatistics
programs and (ii) statistics departments
have lines of research that may include
biomedical applications but also other
areas such as industry, business and
economics and biological areas other
than medicine.