Standardization

(analytical chemistry) A process in which the value of a potential standard is fixed by a measurement made with respect to a standard whose value is known.
(design engineering) The adoption of generally accepted uniform procedures, dimensions, materials, or parts that directly affect the design of a product or a facility.
(engineering) The process of establishing by common agreement engineering criteria, terms, principles, practices, materials, items, processes, and equipment parts and components.

Standardization (or adjustment) of rates is used to enable the valid comparison of groups (e.g., those studied in different places or times) that differ regarding an important health determinant (most commonly age). Although often presented in epidemiologic textbooks as a separate technique, it is in fact a specific application of the general methods to control for confounding factors. As such, many of the issues related to confounding and methods used to adjust for confounding can be applied to standardization. Historically, the need for age standardization was recognized well before the general concept of confounding was formalized. It has it roots in the earliest epidemiological studies—the first known reference to age standardization appeared in a publication by F. G. P. Neison in 1844. The most familiar application is in the presentation of age-standardized mortality or cancer incidence rates to explore temporal trends.

Two major approaches to standardization have been used, direct and indirect. Direct standardization is used when the study population is large enough that age-specific rates within the population are stable. When the population is small (or the outcome is rare), the number of events observed can be small. In that circumstance, indirect standardization methods can be used to produce a standardized mortality rate (SMR) or a standardized incidence rate (SIR).

Direct standardization is commonly used in reports of vital statistics (e.g., mortality) or disease incidence trends (e.g., cancer incidence). Indirect standardization has a played a major role in studies of occupational disease or studies of place and time-limited environmental catastrophes. Indirect standardization was introduced as a tool before direct standardization (1844 vs. 1899).

The standard approach to explaining standardization involves the concepts of expected and "observed" counts. In direct standardization, one estimates the rate that would have been observed if

Table 1

the study population had had the same age structure as the reference group (e.g., the number of cases of disease that would be expected if the disease rates in the study population were applied to the reference population). In indirect standardization, one computes the number of cases of disease that would have been expected if the disease rates from the reference population had applied in the study population. Dividing the observed case count by the expected count yields the SMR. A more modern approach to standardization recognizes that these methods are computing weighted averages of the age-specific rates.

To perform a direct age standardization, one first has to select a reference population. This population is arbitrary, although conventionally one uses either the World Standard Population produced by the World Health Organization, or a census population count for the country in which the work is being conducted. Next, one computes the age-specific rates within the study group. Then, one multiplies these rates by the number of people in that age group in the reference population. These expected counts are summed and divided by the total population size of the reference population to yield the directly standardized rate. This is illustrated in the example shown in Table 1. The crude mortality rate is 63/1,000. Standardizing to the reference population gives an age-adjusted mortality rate of 79,540/1,800,000 = 44/1,000. The adjusted rate is lower than the crude rate is since the proportion of the reference population in the oldest age group (11%), which has the highest age-specific mortality rate, is only 50 percent of that found in the study population (22%). This adjusted rate can be directly compared to

Table 2

adjusted rates from other years to detect trends in mortality.

Indirect standardization uses the reference population to provide age-specific rates. Within each age stratum, one multiplies the reference rate by the number of people in the study population to determine the number of cases that would have been expected if that were the rate in the study group. These expected numbers are added up across all age groups and divided into the observed number to yield the SMR. Values greater than 1 (or 100, as the SMR is commonly expressed multiplied by 100) indicate a higher mortality than expected. It is possible to compute an indirectly standardized rate, but this is much less common than SMR/SIRs. Unlike directly standardized rates, one can not compare SMRs across time or place. One can however, compare SMRs for different outcomes within the same study population. This is a significant limitation to the use of SMRs. In the example given in Table 2, the researcher observed 458 deaths. However, based on the age-specific rates in the reference population, only 221 deaths would have been expected, yielding an SMR of 2.07 (or 207) suggesting a higher mortality rate in the study population than in the reference population.

The use of standardized rates is controversial. Any summary measure can hide patterns that might have important public health implications. For example, with age standardization, one might fail to detect age-specific differences in risk across time or place. This might arise if a disease is displaying an increasing incidence due to a birth cohort effect (people at younger ages might have a higher risk in recent years compared to previous years, while older people could have the opposite pattern). An age-standardized rate could hide these trends. Despite this risk, standardized rates have been found to provide useful summary measures, especially when outcomes are rare and specific rates display wide random variability.

One of the biggest potential abuses of standardized rates is by health care planners who use the standardized rates to estimate demand for services. This is incorrect practice. The standardized rate reflects the number of new cases that would arise in a hypothetical population. The actual number of cases expected is given by the crude rate, which should always be employed in health care planning analyses.

(SEE ALSO: Rates; Rates: Adjusted; Rates: Age-Adjusted; Rates: Age-Specific)

— GEORGE WELLS

The noun has 3 meanings:

Meaning #1: the condition in which a standard has been successfully established
  Synonym: standardisation

Meaning #2: the imposition of standards or regulations
  Synonyms: standardisation, normalization, normalisation

Meaning #3: the act of checking or adjusting (by comparison with a standard) the accuracy of a measuring instrument
  Synonyms: calibration, standardisation

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This article is about technical standards. For other uses, see Standard (disambiguation).

Standardization or standardisation is the process of developing and agreeing upon technical standards. A standard is a document that establishes uniform engineering or technical specifications, criteria, methods, processes, or practices. Some standards are mandatory while others are voluntary. Voluntary standards are available if one chooses to use them. Some are de facto standards, meaning a norm or requirement which has an informal but dominant status. Some standards are de jure, meaning formal legal requirements. Formal standards organizations, such as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) or the American National Standards Institute, are independent of the manufacturers of the goods for which they publish standards.

The goals of standardization can be to help with independence of single suppliers (commoditization), compatibility, interoperability, safety, repeatability, or quality.

In social sciences, including economics, the idea of standardization is close to the solution for a coordination problem, a situation in which all parties can realize mutual gains, but only by making mutually consistent decisions. Standardization is defined as best technical application consentual wisdom inclusive of processes for selection in making appropriate choices for ratification coupled with consistent decisions for maintaining obtained standards. This view includes the case of "spontaneous standardization processes", to produce de facto standards.

Contents 1 Usage 2 Other uses 3 Types 4 See also 5 References

Usage

Standardization is the process of establishing a technical standard, which could be a standard specification, standard test method, standard definition, standard procedure (or practice), etc.

The existence of a published standard does not necessarily imply that it is useful or correct. Just because an item is stamped with a standard number does not, by itself, indicate that the item is fit for any particular use. The people who use the item or service (engineers, trade unions, etc) or specify it (building codes, government, industry, etc) have the responsibility to consider the available standards, specify the correct one, enforce compliance, and use the item correctly. Validation of suitability is necessary.

In the context of social criticism and social sciences, standardization often means the process of establishing standards of various kinds and improving efficiency to handle people, their interactions, cases, and so forth. Examples include formalization of judicial procedure in court, and establishing uniform criteria for diagnosing mental disease. Standardization in this sense is often discussed along with (or synonymously to) such large-scale social changes as modernization, bureaucratization, homogenization, and centralization of society.

In the context of business information exchanges, standardization refers to the process of developing data exchange standards for specific business processes using specific syntaxes. These standards are usually developed in voluntary consensus standards bodies such as the United Nations Center for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT), the World Wide Web Consortium W3C, and the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS).

In the context of customer service, standardization refers to the process of developing an international standard that enables organizations to focus their attention on delivering excellence in customer service, whilst at the same time providing recognition of success through a 3rd Party organization, such as British Standards Institution (BSI). The International Customer Service Standard (TICSS) has been developed by The International Customer Service Institute (TICSI) with the objective of making it the cornerstone global standard of customer service. This standard has the status of an independent standard, managed by The International Customer Service Institute.

Standards can be:

• de facto standards which means they are followed by informal convention or dominant usage.
• de jure standards which are part of legally binding contracts, laws or regulations.
• Voluntary standards which are published and available for people to consider for use

In general, each country or economy has a single recognized National Standards Body (NSB). Examples include ABNT, ANSI, AENOR, BSI, DGN, DIN, IRAM, JISC, KATS, SABS, SAC, SCC, SIS, SNZ. An NSB is likely the sole member from that economy in ISO.

NSBs may be either public or private sector organizations, or combinations of the two. For example, the three NSBs of Canada, Mexico and the United States are respectively the Standards Council of Canada (SCC), the General Bureau of Standards (Dirección General de Normas, DGN), and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). SCC is a Canadian Crown Corporation, DGN is a governmental agency within the Mexican Ministry of Economy, and ANSI and AENOR are a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with members from both the private and public sectors. The determinates of whether an NSB for a particular economy is a public or private sector body may include the historical and traditional roles that the private sector fills in public affairs in that economy or the development stage of that economy.

Many specifications that govern the operation and interaction of devices and software on the Internet are in use. To preserve the word "standard" as the domain of relatively disinterested bodies such as ISO, the W3C, for example, publishes "Recommendations", and the IETF publishes "Requests for Comments" (RFCs). These publications are sometimes referred to as being standards. Drafts and working documents should not be considered as formal published standards.

In a military context, standardization can be defined as: The development and implementation of concepts, doctrines, procedures and designs to achieve and maintain the required levels of compatibility, interchangeability or commonality in the operational, procedural, material, technical and administrative fields to attain interoperability.

Note: there are at least four levels of standardization: compatibility, interchangeability, commonality and reference. These standardization processes create compatibility, similarity, measurement and symbol standards.

Other uses

• In statistics, standardization refers to conversion to standard scores.
• In test theory, standardization refers to measurements or assessments conducted under exact, specified, and repeatable conditions.
• In supply chain management, standardization refers to approaches for increasing commonality of either part, process, product or procurement. Such change will enable delayed making of manufacturing or procurement decisions, thus reducing variability found in having many non-standard components.
• From a New institutional economics point of view, standardization process starts with a social problem known as "coordination dilemma". Standards, as "voluntary norms", serve to facilitate the resolution of coordination dilemmas and realize mutual gains; then standard refer also to a kind of social dilemma solution.

Types

Types of standardization process:

• Emergence as de facto standard: tradition, market domination, etc.
• Written by a Standards organization:
  • in a closed consensus process: Restricted membership and often having formal procedures for due-process among voting members
  • in a full consensus process: usually open to all interested and qualified parties and with formal procedures for due-process considerations.
• Written by a government or regulatory body
• Written by a corporation, union, trade association, etc

See also

Look up standardization or standardisation in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

7.62×51 NATO rifle cartridge ASTM Conformity assessment Embrace, extend and extinguish Environmental standard International Classification for Standards (ICS) International standard Interoperability Network effect Open format

Open standard Open system OpenDocument Quality infrastructure Standard Standard (disambiguation) Standard gauge Standards organizations Template Transport standards organizations Vendor lock-in Java Community Process - The Java Community Process(SM) Program

References

• COoperation Platform for Research And Standards (COPRAS project): Benefits of standards and standardization.
• COoperation Platform for Research And Standards (COPRAS project): Which type of standards should my project pursue.
• ISO: Why standards matter.
• ISO: What standards do.
• ISO: Who standards benefit.
• European Committee for Standardization (CEN): Standards Myths. Accessed 2009-07-08.

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