Basic

Probability
Concepts

Dr Mona Hassan Ahmed Hassan

Prof of Biostatistics
High Institute of Public Health
Alexandria, Egypt
Introduction

People use the term probability

many times each day. For
example, physician says that a
patient has a 50-50 chance of
surviving a certain operation.
Another physician may say that
she is 95% certain that a
patient has a particular disease
Definition

If an event can occur in N mutually exclusive

and equally likely ways, and if m of these
possess a trait, E, the probability of the
occurrence of E is read as
P(E) = m/N
Definition

Experiment ==> any planned process

of data collection. It consists of a
number of trials (replications) under
the same condition.
Definition
Sample space: collection of unique, non-
overlapping possible outcomes of a random
circumstance.

Simple event: one outcome in the sample space; a

possible outcome of a random circumstance.
Event: a collection of one or more simple events in
the sample space; often written as
A, B, C, and so on

Male, Female
Definition
Complement ==> sometimes, we want to know
the probability that an event will not happen; an
event opposite to the event of interest is called
a complementary event.
If A is an event, its complement is The
probability of the complement is AC or A
Example: The complement of male
event is the female

P(A) + P(AC) = 1
 Views of Probability:

1-Subjective:

It is an estimate that reflects a person’s opinion,

or best guess about whether an outcome will
occur.

Important in medicine  form the basis of a

physician’s opinion (based on information gained
in the history and physical examination) about
whether a patient has a specific disease. Such
estimate can be changed with the results of
diagnostic procedures.
2- Objective
Classical
• It is well known that the probability of flipping a
fair coin and getting a “tail” is 0.50.
• If a coin is flipped 10 times, is there a
guarantee, that exactly 5 tails will be
observed
• If the coin is flipped 100 times? With 1000
flips?
• As the number of flips becomes larger, the
proportion of coin flips that result in tails
approaches 0.50
Example: Probability of Male versus
Female Births
Long-run relative frequency of males born in
KSA is about 0.512 (512 boys born per 1000
births)
Table provides results of simulation: the proportion
is far from .512 over the first few weeks but in the
long run settles down around .512.
2- Objective
Relative frequency

Assuming that an experiment can be repeated

many times and assuming that there are one or
more outcomes that can result from each
repetition. Then, the probability of a given
outcome is the number of times that outcome
occurs divided by the total number of
repetitions.
Problem 1.

Blood Males Females Total

Group
O 20 20 40
A 17 18 35
B 8 7 15
AB 5 5 10
Total 50 50 100
Problem 2.

An outbreak of food poisoning occurs in a group

of students who attended a party

Ill Not Ill Total

Ate Barbecue 90 30 120

Did Not Eat Barbecue 20 60 80

Total 110 90 200

Marginal probabilities
Named so because they appear on the
“margins” of a probability table. It is
probability of single outcome
Example: In problem 1, P(Male),
P(Blood group A)
P(Male) = number of males/total
number of subjects
= 50/100
= 0.5
Conditional probabilities
It is the probability of an event on
condition that certain criteria is
satisfied
Example: If a subject was selected randomly and
found to be female what is the probability that
she has a blood group O
Here the total possible outcomes constitute a
subset (females) of the total number of subjects.
This probability is termed probability of O given
F
P(O\F) = 20/50
= 0.40
Joint probability
It is the probability of occurrence of
two or more events together

Example: Probability of being male &

belong to blood group AB
P(M and AB) = P(M∩AB)
= 5/100
= 0.05
∩ = intersection
Properties

The probability ranges between 0

and 1
If an outcome cannot occur, its
probability is 0
If an outcome is sure, it has a
probability of 1
The sum of probabilities of mutually
exclusive outcomes is equal to 1
P(M) + P(F) = 1
 Rules of probability

1- Multiplication rule

Independence and multiplication rule

P(A and B) = P(A) P(B)

P(A) P(B\A)

P(B)

A and B are independent

P(B\A) = P(B)
Example:
The joint probability of being male and
having blood type O
To know that two events are
independent compute the marginal
and conditional probabilities of one of
them if they are equal the two events
are independent. If not equal the two
events are dependent
P(O) = 40/100 = 0.40
P(O\M) = 20/50 = 0.40
Then the two events are independent
P(O∩M) = P(O)P(M) = (40/100)(50/100)
= 0.20
Rules of probability

1- Multiplication rule

Dependence and
the modified multiplication rule

P(A and B) = P(A) P(B\A)

 P(B\A)
P(A)

P(B) P(B\A)

A and B are not independent

P(B\A) ≠ P(B)
Example:
The joint probability of being ill
and eat barbecue

P(Ill) = 110/200 = 0.55

P(Ill\Eat B) = 90/120 = 0.75
Then the two events are
dependent
P(Ill∩Eat B) = P(Eat B)P(Ill\Eat B)
= (120/200)(90/120)
= 0.45
Rules of probability

2- Addition rule
 A and B are mutually exclusive
The occurrence of one event
precludes the occurrence of the other

Addition

Rule

P(A) P(B)

P(A OR B) = P(A U B) = P(A) + P(B)

Example:
The probability of being either
blood type O or blood type A
P(OUA) = P(O) + P(A)
= (40/100)+(35/100)
= 0.75
 A and B are non mutually exclusive
(Can occur together)
Example: Male and smoker

M
od
ifi
Ad ed
d itio
n
Ru
le

P(A) P(B)

P(A ∩ B)

P(A OR B) = P(A U B) = P(A) + P(B) - P(A ∩ B)

Example:

Two events are not mutually exclusive (male

gender and blood type O).
P(M OR O) = P(M)+P(O) – P(M∩O)
= 0.50 + 0.40 – 0.20
= 0.70
Excercises

1. If tuberculous meningitis had a case fatality of 20%,

(a) Find the probability that this disease would be fatal in
two randomly selected patients (the two events are
independent)
(b) If two patients are selected randomly what is the
probability that at least one of them will die?

(a) P(first die and second die) = 20%  20% = 0.04

(b) P(first die or second die)
= P(first die) + P(second die) - P(both
die)
= 20% + 20% - 4%
= 36%
2. In a normally distributed population, the probability
that a subject’s blood cholesterol level will be lower
than 1 SD below the mean is 16% and the probability
of being blood cholesterol level higher than 2 SD
above the mean is 2.5%. What is the probability that a
randomly selected subject will have a blood
cholesterol level lower than 1 SD below the mean or
higher than 2 SD above the mean.

P(blood cholesterol level < 1 SD below the mean or 2

SD above the mean) = 16% + 2.5%
= 18.5%
3. In a study of the optimum dose of lignocaine required to
reduce pain on injection of an intravenous agent used
for induction of anesthesia, four dosing groups were
considered (group A received no lignocaine, while
groups B, C, and D received 0.1, 0.2, and 0.4 mg/kg,
respectively). The following table shows the patients
cross-classified by dose and pain score:
Compute the following probabilities for a Pain Group Total
score
randomly selected patient:
A B C D
1.being of group D and experiencing
0 49 73 58 62 242
no pain
1 16 7 7 8 38
2.belonging to group B or having a 2 8 5 6 6 25
3 4 1 0 0 5
pain score of 2
Total 77 86 71 76 310
3.having a pain score of 3 given that
Nightlights and Myopia
Assuming these data are representative of a larger
population, what is the approximate probability
that someone from that population who sleeps
with a nightlight in early childhood
will develop some degree of myopia?

Note: 72 + 7 = 79 of the 232 nightlight users developed some

degree of myopia. So the probability to be 79/232 = 0.34.
Assignment:
• Daniel WW.
• Page 76-81
• Questions:
4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22