INTRODUCTION TO

IHSTAT SOFTWARE

(REQUIRED FOR ASSIGNMENT 3)

 WHAT IS IHSTAT?

 IHStat is a free statistical package developed by the American

Industrial Hygiene Association for evaluating occupational
samples

 The program is a preprogramed Excel worksheet that:

 computes descriptive statistics
 determines if the distributions are normal or log normally distributed
 calculates associated confidence limits

 Ideal for determining compliance with little work

LOGNORMAL VS NORMAL DISTRIBUTIONS

 Normal distribution
 When data resembles a bell shape (i.e. equally clustered around the
mean/average)
 Often occurs with noise data and/or physiological monitoring (ex.
blood pressure, heart rate)

 Log Normal distribution

 When original data is skewed and does not resemble a bell curve
 Occurs frequently with air monitored sampling (e.g. particulates)
 Transforming the data (i.e. taking the natural logarithm of each
sample) provides us with a normally distributed variable
 HOW DO I USE IHSTAT?

The remainder of this PowerPoint will walk you through how to

use IHStat with the use of screen shots.

Before we can proceed you need to:

1. Download and open IHStat from Moodle or from the AIHA

website

2. Ensure macros are enabled in Excel

 NOTE: if you are unable to enable macros there is a macro free version
available on the AIHA website; however, the layout and design is slightly
different.
OPENING PAGE OF IHSTAT PROGRAM

STEP 2:
Click button
to enter
program

STEP 1:
Select
language
preference
 HOW TO ENTER EXPOSURE LIMIT FOR
COMPARISONS

STEP 3:
Enter /change
occupational
exposure limit
of hazard you
are evaluating
by typing in the
new value.

For example:
chlorine has a
TLV of 0.5
ppm.
 HOW TO CLEAR DATA

STEP 4:
When you open
IHSTAT there may
be existing data
in the sheet.

Clear existing
data to input new
data by clicking
on the eraser
(circled).
 HOW TO ENTER DATA

STEP 5:
Enter your data
1. Copy the data points from
your Excel sheet you want
to evaluate
• Data must be copied
from one column

2. Go to IHStat program, click

the first empty cell under
the “Sample data” column
and paste data (or enter by
hand)

3. When you paste your data

the statistics/ graphics will
be computed

• NOTE: Max 200 data

points can be entered
into program
DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS

Step 6
Recording descriptive statistics

- This first box provides the descriptive

statistics you will want to include into
your reports such as the number of
samples, mean, standard
deviation, and geometric mean and
standard deviation (i.e. mean of log
transformed data) , etc.

- You will also note they include the

percent of samples above the OEL
you indicated in Step 3
EVALUATING DATA
DISTRIBUTIONS
Step 7:
Determine the distribution of your data

The second data box helps you determine if your

data fits a normal (i.e. bell curve) or a lognormal
distribution (i.e. skewed curve).

This is important as the confidence limits used to

determine compliance are computed differently.

IHStat makes determining distributions easy. They

provide you with the W-test statistic, but also
provide you with a simple /easy way to interpret the
results:

• Yes/blue thumbs up = fits distribution

• No/red thumbs down = does not fit distribution

In this example we can see that the data fits a log

normal distribution.
α level

NOTE:

α = 0.05 is referring to the

confidence level

α = 0.05 means we have a

confidence level of 95%

IHStat uses 95% confidence

level for all tests
 CHOOSING CONFIDENCE LIMITS

What do you do in cases where:

1. Data fits both a normal and lognormal

distribution
• In this situation you can choose
either option however, a normal
distribution is easier to interpret

2. Data does not fit a normal or lognormal

distribution
• In this type of situation you are best
using a nonparametric analysis
method, which cannot be done in
IHStat
 OBTAINING CONFIDENCE LIMITS

Step 8:
Obtaining confidence limits (i.e. UCL, LCL)

Now that you know which distribution your data

follows you can select the confidence limits
provided in either the:

1. Lognormal parametric statistics box

• Use this box if your data fits a lognormal
distribution from Step 7
• Confidence limits are calculated by Land’s
Exact method

2. Normal parametric statistics box

• Use this box if your data fits a normal
distribution from Step 7
• Confidence limits are calculated by
t-statistics
 SAVING FILES

You can save the program with the current data by

clicking the save icon on the program sheet.

• NOTE: this will save the file to a default location

and does not allow you to change the name of
the file so you continually overwrite the existing
data.

When you are doing your assignment it is a good

idea to save each analysis (i.e. each grouping) as a
separate file so you don’t have to reenter data if
you want to double check your numbers.

• To save each analysis as it’s own file go into the

file menu and select “save as”
 IMBEDDED NOTES/COMMENTS

Please note that in some of the data result boxes there are small red triangles.
• These indicate that there are comments associated with the test
• To view comments hover over triangle and the comment will appear (as shown above)
• These comments are meant to provide you with information or descriptions of the statistic