How to Construct a Demographics Table

A demographics table is often the first table presented (Table 1) in a research paper and provides a clear and concise summary of your study population.

Even if you are just starting your data analysis, summarizing all of the relevant variables measured in your study can help you quickly identify errors, out-of-range data points, the proportion of missing data, or outliers that you may want to examine more closely.

Step 1: Get background. Read our overview and this excellent introductory article on constructing a Table 1 which will give you general insights, best practices, and a solid overview of statistical considerations.
Step 2: Know what to present. Understand the best summary statistics for different types of continuous variables.
Step 3: Automate. Use a software package like the table1 package in R to produce publication-quality tables with a few lines of code.
Step 4: Learn the basics of statistical testing. Learn how to run the appropriate statistical tests for group comparisons based on your design and variable type.
Step 5: Create your table. Put all of the above steps together and generate a table.