[R] Software for Epidmiological, Longitudinal Data

[Andrea Meyer]

Hello

We are a team working on a prospective psychological study. The study 
design is based on assessing data of three generations of humans over a 
long time period, wherein epidemiological as well as biological data 
will be assessed. Sample sizes will range from about 100 to several 
thousand depending on the research question.
 
Currently we are looking for an apropriate statistical package. Here are 
some features that the software should have:
- strong in the analysis of epidemiological and longitudinal data
- platform independent (should run under different operating systems 
like Windows, Mac OS, Unix)
- Ease of use for non-statistic-professionals (i.e. userfriendly GUI)
- High acceptance by scientific journals, by the FDA
- Importance relative to other packages with respect to the number of 
users, the number of publications in which the software is used, the 
market share etc.  (including the recent development of these indices!) 
 
As we had some problems in finding information concerning these items we 
would like to ask you where we might find it (if at all) and why R is 
presumably the best competitor and why?
 
Thanks in advance for any suggestions concerning this!

-- 

Dr. Andrea Hans Meyer
University of Basel
Institute of Psychology
Missionsstrasse 60/62
CH-4055 Basel
Switzerland
Phone: ++41 61 267 06 55
Fax:     ++41 61 267 06 59