Statistical computing – SAS
What is SAS?
SAS (pronounced “sass”, originally Statistical Analysis System) is an integrated system of software products provided by SAS Institute Inc. that enables programmers to perform:
- data entry, retrieval, management, and mining
- report writing and graphics
- statistical analysis
- business planning, forecasting, and decision support
- operations research and project management
- quality improvement
- applications development
- data warehousing (extract, transform, load)
- platform independent and remote computing
In addition, SAS has many business solutions that enable large-scale software solutions for areas such as IT management, human resource management, financial management, business intelligence, customer relationship management and more.
SAS is used extensively in the pharmaceutical industry and government departments.
SAS and Research at LSHTM
SAS is used by a variety of researchers at LSHTM. It is especially useful for complex mixed models and the handling of very large data sets. SAS lacks the ease of producing graphical output that can be performed with Stata and R however these have been improved in the most recent version of SAS.
SAS and Teaching at LSTHM
Medical statistics students encounter SAS in the course Introduction to Stata and SAS in term 1. SAS is also the package used in the term 3 module Advanced Statistical Modelling.
There are no SAS courses currently taught outside of the MSc at the moment. Many organisations, including the SAS Institute, run introductory courses throughout the year.
SAS User Groups
A SAS user group is in the process of being established at LSHTM. The idea would be to meet every three months or so and share knowledge and discuss common problems. Information regarding formation of the SAS user group will be gathered by a user survey which will be circulated shortly.