7.6 Summary: Use of confidence intervals

In this session we have discussed the concepts underlying confidence intervals and different interpretations of 95% confidence intervals.

We can construct a confidence interval for any estimate, including:

  • means

  • proportions

  • differences in means

  • risk ratios

  • regression coefficients

  • etc.

The way we construct confidence intervals can vary but the basic interpretation of the confidence interval remains the same.

While we have focused on 95% confidence intervals, we can construct other intervals, e.g. 99% confidence intervals. The use of 95% confidence intervals is largely convention.