Which summary statistic can PROC UNIVARIATE output for continuous data?

PROC UNIVARIATE is a powerful SAS procedure that is designed for exploratory data analysis of continuous data. One of its primary functions is to calculate and output descriptive statistics, which includes the median. The median is a measure of central tendency that represents the middle value in a dataset when the values are ordered. It provides a robust summary of the data, especially in the presence of outliers, and is particularly useful for understanding the distribution of continuous variables.

In the context of PROC UNIVARIATE, the procedure can produce a variety of descriptive statistics for continuous data, including measures such as the mean, standard deviation, minimum, maximum, and, importantly, the median. This capability makes it an essential tool for clinical data analysis, where understanding the characteristics of continuous variables is crucial for drawing insights about a population or treatment effects.

The other options mentioned do not fall within the summary statistics typically output by PROC UNIVARIATE. For instance, odds ratios pertain to categorical data and are most commonly derived from logistic regression analysis, while contingency tables are used to summarize relationships between two categorical variables. P-values arise from hypothesis testing and are reported in the context of various statistical tests but are not direct summary statistics calculated by PROC UNIVARIATE for continuous data