StATS: What is continuous data?

Data that consist of a large number of values, with no particular category label attached to any particular data value. Ask yourself if your data can conceptually take on any value inside some interval. If it can, you have a good indication that your data are continuous. In a recently published study of breast feeding in pre-term infants, there are a variety of continuous variables:

• the infant's birth weight in grams;
• the mother's age in years; and
• the distance from the mother's home to the hospital in miles.

This page was written by Steve Simon while working at Children's Mercy Hospital. Although I do not hold the copyright for this material, I am reproducing it here as a service, as it is no longer available on the Children's Mercy Hospital website. Need more information? I have a page with general help resources. You can also browse for pages similar to this one at Category: Definitions.