Open-Source Statistical Software: Revolutionising Health Research Authors Masood Ali Shaikh Department of Medicine, College of Medicine, Korea University, South Korea Syed Muhammad Mubeen Hamdard College of Medicine & Dentistry,Hamdard University, Karachi, Pakistan DOI: https://doi.org/10.47391/JPMA.25-101 Abstract Data are everywhere, and medical and public healthresearch depends on making sense of it. This requiresutilisation of advanced statistical and geographicalinformation system (GIS) tools to glean insights from data,guide health and public policies, and promote healthsciences to reduce the global burden of morbidity andmortality. Proprietary statistical software programmes likeSAS, SPSS, and Stata, along with ArcGIS for mapping andspatial analysis, have dominated the statistical analysisfield for decades. The emergence of open-source softwarefor statistical analysis, such as R, Python, and Julia, as wellas spatial analysis software like QGIS, is challenging theseproprietary behemoths. These open-source softwaresolutions provide cutting-edge analytical capabilities atno financial cost, thereby democratising access to healthdata analysis and insights for improving the health ofpopulations globally. Continue... Downloads Full Text Article Published 2025-11-22 How to Cite Masood Ali Shaikh, & Syed Muhammad Mubeen. (2025). Open-Source Statistical Software: Revolutionising Health Research. Journal of the Pakistan Medical Association, 75(12), 1866–1867. https://doi.org/10.47391/JPMA.25-101 More Citation Formats ACM ACS APA ABNT Chicago Harvard IEEE MLA Turabian Vancouver Download Citation Endnote/Zotero/Mendeley (RIS) BibTeX Issue Vol. 75 No. 12 (2025): DECEMBER Section EDITORIAL License Copyright (c) 2025 Journal of the Pakistan Medical Association This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.