What does the PROC UNIVARIATE procedure analyze?

The PROC UNIVARIATE procedure in SAS is designed specifically to analyze the distribution of a variable. It provides a comprehensive overview of the variable's distribution characteristics through various statistical measures, such as mean, median, mode, standard deviation, and percentiles. Additionally, PROC UNIVARIATE produces visual outputs like histograms, box plots, and quantile-quantile plots, which help in understanding the shape and variability of the data distribution.

While summary statistics of a variable are indeed part of what PROC UNIVARIATE provides, the primary focus is on the distribution itself—how the data are spread and their underlying patterns. Correlation between multiple variables is not within the scope of PROC UNIVARIATE; this analysis is more suitable for procedures like PROC CORR. Similarly, data standardization techniques are not covered by this procedure; they are typically handled in other methods, such as transformations and scaling that are outside of PROC UNIVARIATE's intended functionality.