#NIGHTINGALE HOME HEALTH HOW TO#
He solved her great dilemma of how to reconcile a universe run by law, and she referred to this as social research-the investigation of God’s laws. Quetelet wanted to understand the statistical laws underlying social phenomena. Quetelet, head of Belgium’s central statistical agency and an expert on the collection of official statistics and probability theory. Q: Did Nightingale have a mentor in statistics, and what was the impact?ĭossey: Nightingale’s main mentor was L.A.J. For an example, see the article in Science News.
William Farr, the leading medical statistician, worked with her on her data analysis. Her pioneering statistical displays included polar area charts to show death per month from disease, wounds, and other causes. She came to prominence during the Crimean War (1854–1856) with her Army Royal Commission work. She pioneered army and military statistics, nursing and health outcomes statistics, health policy, hospital design, and environmental policy at the local, national, and global levels. She left 14,000 letters and 200 publications in the archives, with the majority in the archives at the British Library, Wellcome Institute Library, London General Record Office, Claydon House, and Royal Army History Museum. Q: Can you give some examples of Nightingale’s use of statistics?ĭossey: Nightingale’s commitment to statistics spanned her entire working life, from 1856 into the 1890s. She refused and made a conscious choice to serve God through social action. Born into the “upper ten thousand” richest families in England, her family wanted her to marry into wealth and high society. She also insisted that a mathematician tutor her. She spoke and read five additional languages (i.e., French, German, Italian, Latin, and Greek). In her 20s, she began to read England and other countries’ blue books on health, illness, and disease and assembled her own vast “database” that led to her later research and publications. Q: What was Florence Nightingale’s formal education, and did it include statistics?ĭossey: Nightingale received a classical Cambridge home education from her father, since women were not permitted to attend universities in the 1840s and 1850s. How did Nightingale define God?ĭossey: Her definition of God, in her own words, was: “What do we mean by ‘God’? All we can say is that we recognize a power superior to our own that we recognize this power as exercised by wise and good will.” She saw statistics as a way to help her follow God’s creative work. Q: Some statisticians may be puzzled, or even distressed, by the mention of God and statistics in the same sentence. Her statistical analyses taught her the importance of the environment, biological, social, and cultural impacts on health, or illness and disease, and treatment and other outcomes. Q: What was the basis of Nightingale’s passionate commitment to statistics?ĭossey: Nightingale saw herself as a fellow worker with God, and her passionate commitment to statistics was based on her faith in a God of order, who created a world that ran by law. She worked till the end of her life, dying at age 90 in 1910. Q: How would you describe Florence Nightingale?ĭossey: Nightingale, best known as the founder of modern, secular nursing, was also a mystic, visionary, educator, environmentalist, statistician, politician, networker, and social reformer. Larry and Barbara Dossey at Embley Park, the family home of Florence Nightingale, near Hampshire, EnglandĪnd now I turn to my interview with Barbara Dossey. In 1916 in JASA, Edwin Kopf provided a graphic illustration of Nightingale’s ability to communicate the meaning of raw statistics: So before presenting the interview with Dossey, I offer here some inspirational quotes from statisticians writing about Nightingale over almost a century. As I delved deeper into Nightingale’s work, philosophy, and life, I realized part of her legacy includes powerful lessons relevant to statisticians today. I decided to interview Dossey to see what she could add to our understanding of the enigmatic Nightingale and to learn more about NIGH. This chance meeting renewed my interest in learning and writing about Florence Nightingale. And I learned about the Nightingale Initiative for Global Health (NIGH), founded in 2004 by a small group of Nightingale scholars-including Dossey, who currently serves on its board of directors. I discovered Dossey is an internationally recognized Nightingale scholar. I met Barbara Dossey, who had accompanied her husband to a conference in Portugal at which he and I were both invited speakers.
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