Hardly a day goes by without news headlines concerning infectious disease threats. Currently the spectre of a pandemic of influenza A-H1N1 is raising its head, and heated debates are taking place about the pro s and con s of vaccinating young girls against human papilloma virus. For an evidence-based and responsible communication of infectious disease topics to avoid misunderstandings and overreaction of the public, we need solid scientific knowledge and an understanding of all aspects of infectious diseases and their control.

The aim of our book is to present the reader with the general picture and the main ideas of the subject. The book introduces the reader to methodological aspects of epidemiology that are specific for infectious diseases and provides insight into the epidemiology of some classes of infectious diseases characterized by their main modes of transmission. This choice of topics bridges the gap between scientific research on the clinical, biological, mathematical, social and economic aspects of infectious diseases and their applications in public health.

The book will help the reader to understand the impact of infectious diseases on modern society and the instruments that policy makers have at their disposal to deal with these challenges. It is written for students of the health sciences, both of curative medicine and public health, and for experts that are active in these and related domains, and it may be of interest for the educated layman since the technical level is kept relatively low."

The management of Alzheimer's Disease and the related dementias is one of the major challenges to health care professionals and American society-at-large for the coming decade and the coming millennium. The rapid growth of the over-eighty-five population, the group which, as recent studies have confirmed and as many of us clinicians have long suspected, has an even higher prevalence than previously quoted of dementing disorders, is the major cause of this. We are thus challenged by, as Bernard Issacs used to call it, "the survival of the unfittest," as well as the oPtimistic approach of "bringing life to years," as John F. Kennedy said. The fact is that we, as a society, tend to confuse "treatment" and "cure" (and "prevention"). As the proceedings of the conference which this book represents emphasize, there is considerable work going on about the potential prevention of, or at least the reduction of, symptomatology in these illnesses by interventions genetically, chemIcally, and so forth. However, the more we find out, the more complicated it becomes, and the more heterogeneous Alzheimer's and the related disorders appear to be, not only in their manifestations (as clinicians have long recognized) but also in the individual initiating and underlying processes. For these reasons, absolute preventive techniques or the likelihood of an intervention which will reverse the process in a high proportion of patients, do not appear to be just around the corner.

The Final Report of the USA CAPO Registry summarizes eight years of observation and analysis that reflects the experiences of 485 clinical centers and over 25,000 CAPO patients. As such, it offers a wealth of information, available here for the first time to interested parties around the world. Because the National Institutes of Health was quick to see the potential of CAPO as a promising therapy for patients with end stage renal disease, the Registry project was begun soon after its introduction into clinical practice in the USA. Accordingly, the Registry offered the nephrology community in the United States a special opportunity to study this emerging new therapy in some detail, an opportunity not previously available for any other form of dialysis. As will be seen in this report, the result of this early and intensive research effort has been the development of a vast amount of clinically important information regarding the utilization, safety, and efficacy of this important dialytic therapy.

On May 27-31, 1985, a series of symposia was held at The University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, to celebrate the 70th birthday of Pro fessor V. M. Joshi. These symposia were chosen to reflect Professor Joshi's research interests as well as areas of expertise in statistical science among faculty in the Departments ofStatistical and Actuarial Sciences, Economics, Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and Philosophy. From these symposia, the six volumes which comprise the "Joshi Festschrift" have arisen. The 117 articles in this work reflect the broad interests and high quality of research of those who attended our conference. We would like to thank all of the contributors for their superb cooperation in helping us to complete this project. Our deepest gratitude must go to the three people who have spent so much of their time in the past year typing these volumes: Jackie Bell, Lise Constant, and Sandy Tarnowski. This work has been printed from "camera ready" copy produced by our Vax 785 computer and QMS Lasergraphix printers, using the text processing software TEX. At the initiation of this project, we were neophytes inthe use ofthis system. Thank you, Jackie, Lise, and Sandy, for having the persistence and dedication needed to complete this undertaking."

Screening for cancer is an important focus of cancer control. Yet screening, as it involves administering a test to large segments of the population deemed to be at risk for the disease of interest, is potentially a major consumer of scarce health care resources. In addition, the benefits sought from cancer screening, particularly reduction in mortality from the disease, are not always realized, either for biological or organizational reasons. Thus, the paradigm that early detection must always be beneficial', taught to health care professionals, and publicized widely through the media to the public, has been challenged in the last two decades for a number of cancer sites. It is the purpose of Advances in Cancer Screening to determine the extent to which the requirements for the introduction of population-based screening programs have been met, as a result of extensive research on screening during the last two decades, with a major concentration on findings from the recent decade.

Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute, Castera-Verduzan, France, August 1-16, 1981

Asia has become the new battle ground for the war against HIV/AIDS. The magnitude of the potential public health problems caused by AIDS in this populous continent may become a catastrophic disaster. A 10% rate of prevalence of HIV-1 in India and China alone would mean more than 200 million people are infected with HIV.
AIDS in Asia is useful as a comprehensive, up-to-date AIDS reference book for public health and medical professionals. This volume provides concrete information on the diagnosis, treatment, care, prevention and impact of AIDS. Part I contains 'Snapshots of HIV/AIDS in Asia.' Countries and regions included in this section are: Thailand, India, China, Japan, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Hawaii and the Pacific Islands, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Part II addresses the molecular epidemiology of HIV/AIDS. Part III deals with the diagnosis, surveillance and projected scenarios of the AIDS epidemic. Part IV outlines prevention efforts and treatment options. Part V provides an overview of the ongoing collaborative efforts involved in several different nations in the worldwide war against AIDS.
This volume will be invaluable to all the public health professionals and researchers working in this field.

..".the book is a useful addition to the HIV/AIDS literature."

"AIDS in Asia offers a comprehensive, interesting overview of the epidemic there and of general issues that will influence its progression."

-Roger Detels, MD, MS, University of California-Los Angeles

The Journal of the American Medical Association, Book Review, 293:15

A reprint of the 1989 edition of this book has been made necessary by continuing demand after rapid exhaustion of the first printing. In the two years since its appearance, there has been relatively little expansion of knowledge on this topic, and its massive accumulation of references still remains an authoritative guide in the difficult task of developing a national breast cancer prevention model. At the same time, its thesis has been sharpened by the publication of a companion volume Approaches to Breast Cancer Prevention (Kluwer, 1991) similarly edited byrne. Breast cancer is on the increase throughout the Western world where it is a major source of anxiety among women. The disease is also becoming more frequent in Asian and South American countries where once it was relatively uncommon. Multiple fac tors are suspected of promoting the disease and the increasing risk is attributed to recent changes in life-style and diet. This book is intended to provide an authorita tive and balanced survey of the latest research into the genetic, familial, hormonal, reproductive, nutritional, social and geographic factors known to be associated with an increased predisposition to the disease."

The study of Health and Medical Aspects of Disaster Preparedness was approved by NATO/CCMS in 1985 with the first pilot study meeting in June of that year. The pilot study, under the leadership of the United States and Belgium, focused on the current status of disaster preparedness in partici pating nations. An objective look was taken at the availability or resources to cope with disasters from an international standpoint. The types of disaster settings that were reviewed in the study included the following: (1) Earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, avalanches (2) Nuclear power plant accidents or spills (3) Water and aircraft accidents (4) Building fires, building collapses (5) Contamination by hazardous chemicals or biological waste (6) Civil disturbances A disaster can strike anywhere at any time. Some nations and local communities have well-developed disaster plans with which to meet catastrophic situations. The fact is that most communities are without written and coordinated disaster plans which offer their citizens the most effective and comprehensive protection in these unexpected and often critical situations. Disaster has been defined as a sudden event which involves large numbers of people and results in loss of life, serious injury and property loss. together with a severe disruption of community organization and services. In the United States, thousands of people are killed and injured in disasters every year. Thus, disasters constitute a serious problem in both individual and public health terms in this country alone. Disasters can be classified as natural and man-made.

Therearemanygoodepidemiologytextbooksonthemarket,butmostoftheseare addressedtostudentsofpublichealthorpeoplewhodoclinicalresearchwithe- demiologicmethods. Thereisaneedforashortintroductiononhowepidemiologic methodsareusedinpublichealth,geneticandclinicalepidemiology,becausehealth professionalsneedtoknowbasicepidemiologicmethodscoveringetiologicaswell asprognosticfactorsofdiseases. Theyneedtoknowmoreaboutmethodologythan introductorytextsonpublichealthhavetooffer. Insomehealthfaculties,epidemiologyisnotevenpartoftheteachingcurri- lum. Webelievethistobeaseriousmistake. Medicalstudentsarestudentsofall aspectsofdiseasesandhealth. Withoutknowingsomethingaboutepidemiologythe cliniciansandotherhealthprofessionalscannotreadagrowingpartofthesci- ti cliteratureinanyreasonablycriticalwayandcannotnavigateintheworldof "evidence-basedmedicineandevidence-basedprevention. "Withoutskillsine- demiologicmethodologytheyareinthehandsofexpertsthatmaynotonlyhavean interestinhealth. Some health professionals may believe that only common sense is needed to conductepidemiologicalstudies,butthescienti cliteratureandthepublicdebate onhealthissuesindicatethatcommonsenseisofteninshortsupplyandmaynot thrivewithoutsomeformaltraining. Epidemiologic methods play a key role in identifying environmental, social, and genetic determinants of diseases. Clinical epidemiology addresses the tr- sitionfromdiseasetohealthortowardmortalityorsocialormedicalhandicaps. Publichealthepidemiologyaddressesthetransitionfrombeinghealthytobeingnot healthy. Descriptiveepidemiologyprovidesthediseasepatternthatisneededtolook athealthinabroadperspectiveandtosettheprioritiesright. Epidemiologyisabasic scienceofmedicinewhichaddresseskeyquestionssuchas"Whobecomesill?"and "Whatareimportantprognosticfactors?"Answerstosuchquestionsprovidethe basisforbetterpreventionandtreatmentofdiseases. Many people contributed to the writing of this book: medical students in Denmark,studentsofepidemiologyattheIEAEEPEsummercourseinFlorence, Italy,andstudentsofpublichealthinLosAngeles. Withouttechnicalassistance v vi Preface fromGitteNielsen,JenadeShelley,NinaHoheandPamMasangkaythebookwould neverhavematerialized. LosAngeles,California JornOlsen Odense,Denmark KaareChristensen IowaCity,Iowa JeffMurray Stockholm,Sweden AndersEkbom Contents Part I Descriptive Epidemiology 1 Measures of Disease Occurrence ...3 IncidenceandPrevalence ...4 Incidence...6 RatesandDynamicPopulations ...7 CalculatingObservationTime...9 Prevalence,Incidence,Duration ...10 MortalityandLifeExpectancy ...11 LifeExpectancy ...12 References...13 2 Estimates of Associations ...15 3 Age Standardization...19 4 Causes of Diseases ...23 References...28 5 Descriptive Epidemiology in Public Health...29 GraphicalModelsofCausalLinks ...33 References...35 6 Descriptive Epidemiology in Genetic Epidemiology...37 OccurrenceDatainGeneticEpidemiology ...37 ClusteringofTraitsandDiseasesinFamilies ...38 TheOccurrenceofGeneticDiseases ...40 References...41 7 Descriptive Epidemiology in Clinical Epidemiology...43 SuddenInfantDeathSyndrome(SIDS)...44 CytologicalScreeningforCervixCancer ...45 ChangesinTreatmentofJuvenileDiabetes ...46 References...47 vii viii Contents Part II Analytical Epidemiology 8 Design Options...51 CommonDesignsUsedtoEstimateAssociations...51 EcologicalStudy ...52 Case-ControlStudy...54 CohortStudy ...5 5 ExperimentalStudy ...56 Reference ...57 9 Follow-Up Studies ...59 TheNon-experimentalFollow-Up(Cohort)Study ...59 StudyingRiskasaFunctionofBMI ...60 LongitudinalExposureData...62 DifferentTypesofCohortorFollow-UpStudies...63 10 Case-Control Studies...67 Case-CohortSampling ...69 DensitySamplingofControls...69 Case-Non-caseStudy...71 PatientControls ...72 SecondaryIdenti cationoftheSourcePopulation ...74 Case-ControlStudiesUsingPrevalentCases...74 WhentoDoaCase-ControlStudy? ...77 References...78 11 The Cross-Sectional Study...79 12 The Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) ...81 Reference ...

This volume presents the procedings of an "Advanced Research Workshop," held under the auspices of the NATO International Scientific Exchange Programme, on the Environmental and Non-environmental Determinants of the East-West Life Expectancy Gap in Europe. The workshop brought together individuals from Eastern and Western Europe and North America who had a common interest in understanding the evolution of the relative declines in life expectancy in Central and Eastern Europe, compared to the West, over the past 30 years. Between 1989 and 1993, I carried out a series of investigations into the effects of environmental pollution on human health in Central and Eastern Europe, at first, under the auspices of the World Bank, and later, under a broader multilateral, multi-agency arrangement known as the "Environment for Europe" Process. These investigations provided unparalleled access to environmental health data from the region, and offered a glimpse of what the contribution of pollution to health status was, and what it was not. At the same time, the Program in Population Health of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIAR) and the International Centre for Health and Society (ICHS) at University College, London, were embarking upon multi-disciplinary inquiries into the broad determinants of health in modern societies. The work of the CIAR provided a framework for conceptualizing the East-West life expectancy gap and its potential determinants; the work of the ICHS provided specific insights into the relative contributions of these determinants.

Preventing Disease, the offspring of an extraordinary collaboration between the U.S. and Canadian Preventive Services Task Forces, presents a meticulous and objective review of the published evidence on preventive measures. Examining such diverse and relevant topics as screening for endometrial cancer, exercise counselling for healthy adults, and the evidence for a causal relation between dietary lipids and coronary heart disease, this volume reflects the editors' shared conviction that recommendations for preventive action should rarely exceed what is well justified by the evidence. In the current period, characterized as the Second Public Health Revolution, the authors' hard-nosed approach leads them to ask the tough questions. Are preventive measures cost-saving? Does preventive screening actually lead to treatment in clinical practice? Does the treatment do more good than harm? To what extent does our desire to eliminate causes of serious disability, ill health and premature death cloud our objectivity? All concerned about preventive medicine, community health, and primary care will find valuable stimulation for thought and action in this book: the contributions have gone beyond the rhetoric.

This volume reports the proceedings of a NATO Advanced Workshop held at Cameron House Hotel, Loch Lomond, Scotland, from May 2 - 5, 1994. The major impetus for this workshop was the realisation, over the past 7 years, that the Epstein-Barr virus is associated with a proportion of cases of Hodgkin's disease and is likely to play an aetiological role. There were four main aims of the workshop: first, to discuss the recent findings in relation to Epstein Barr virus and the aetiology of Hodgkin's disease; second, to relate these data to the epidemiology of Hodgkin's disease; third, to discuss other potential aetiological factors and finally, to discuss future directions for research into Hodgkin's disease. Leading experts in the field have contributed chapters to this volume. There is some overlap among chapters, particularly regarding Epstein-Barr virus, thereby allowing different groups to express views on similar topics. Perhaps, however, the most surprising feature of the workshop was the lack of controversy regarding the role of Epstein-Barr virus in Hodgkin's disease, an association that was treated with great scepticism at the beginning of the decade. The first three chapters, by Alexander, Taylor et al., and Levine el al., discuss the epidemiology of Hodgkin's disease with particular attention to clustering and genetic susceptibility. These chapters represent the first attempt to bring together epidemiological and molecular studies in Hodgkin's disease.

The first part of this manual deals with the experimental and scientific basis and the principles of the AOjASIF method of stable internal fixation. It deals with the function and main use of the different AO implants, the use of the different AO instruments, and with the essentials of the operative technique and of postoperative care. It also discusses the handling of the most important postoperative complications. The second part deals at length with the AO recommendations for the operative treatment of the most common closed fractures in the adult. This has been organized in anatomical sequence. The discussion of the closed fractures is followed by a discus sion of open fractures in the adult, then by fractures in children and finally by pathological fractures. The third part presents, in a condensed fashion, the application of stable internal fixation to reconstructive bone surgery. 1 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 1 Aims and Fundamental Principles of the AO Method The Chief Aim of Fracture Treatment is the Full Recovery of the Injured Limb In every fracture there is a combination of damage to both the soft tissues and to bone. Immediately after the fracture and during the phase of repair, we see certain local circulatory disturbances, certain manifestations of local inflammation, as well as pain and reflex splinting. These three factors, that is, circulatory disturbances, inflammation and pain, when combined with the defunctioning of bone, joints and muscle, result in the so-called jl'acture disease.

Computer-based infectious disease surveillance systems are capable of real-time or near real-time detection of serious illnesses and potential bioterrorism agent exposures and represent a major step forward in disease surveillance. Infectious Disease Informatics: Syndromic Surveillance for Public Health and Bio-Defense is an in-depth monograph that analyzes and evaluates the outbreak modeling and detection capabilities of existing surveillance systems under a unified framework, and presents the first book-length coverage of the subject from an informatics-driven perspective. Individual chapters consider the state of the art, including the facilitation of data collection, sharing and transmission; a focus on various outbreak detection methods; data visualization and information dissemination issues; and system assessment and other policy issues. Eight chapters then report on several real-world case studies, summarizing and comparing eight syndromic surveillance systems, including those that have been adopted by many public health agencies (e.g., RODS and BioSense). The book concludes with a discussion of critical issues and challenges, with a look to future directions. This book is an excellent source of current information for researchers in public health and IT. Government public health officials and private-sector practitioners in both public health and IT will find the most up-to-date information available, and students from a variety of disciplines, including public health, biostatistics, information systems, computer science, and public administration and policy will get a comprehensive look at the concepts, techniques, and practices of syndromic surveillance.

Praise for the Second Edition: "... this is a useful, comprehensive compendium of almost every possible sample size formula. The strong organization and carefully defined formulae will aid any researcher designing a study." -Biometrics "This impressive book contains formulae for computing sample size in a wide range of settings. One-sample studies and two-sample comparisons for quantitative, binary, and time-to-event outcomes are covered comprehensively, with separate sample size formulae for testing equality, non-inferiority, and equivalence. Many less familiar topics are also covered ..." - Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Sample Size Calculations in Clinical Research, Third Edition presents statistical procedures for performing sample size calculations during various phases of clinical research and development. A comprehensive and unified presentation of statistical concepts and practical applications, this book includes a well-balanced summary of current and emerging clinical issues, regulatory requirements, and recently developed statistical methodologies for sample size calculation. Features: Compares the relative merits and disadvantages of statistical methods for sample size calculations Explains how the formulae and procedures for sample size calculations can be used in a variety of clinical research and development stages Presents real-world examples from several therapeutic areas, including cardiovascular medicine, the central nervous system, anti-infective medicine, oncology, and women's health Provides sample size calculations for dose response studies, microarray studies, and Bayesian approaches This new edition is updated throughout, includes many new sections, and five new chapters on emerging topics: two stage seamless adaptive designs, cluster randomized trial design, zero-inflated Poisson distribution, clinical trials with extremely low incidence rates, and clinical trial simulation.

With COVID-19 sweeping across the globe with near impunity, it is thwarting governments and health organizations efforts to contain it. Not since the 1918 Spanish Flu have citizens of developed countries experienced such a large-scale disease outbreak that is having devastating health and economic impacts. One reason such outbreaks are not more common has been the success of the public health community, including epidemiologists and biostatisticians, in identifying and then mitigating or eliminating the outbreaks. Monitoring the Health of Populations by Tracking Disease Outbreaks: Saving Humanity from the Next Plague is the story of the application of statistics for disease detection and tracking. The work of public health officials often crucially depends on statistical methods to help discern whether an outbreak may be occurring and, if there is sufficient evidence of an outbreak, then to locate and track it. Statisticians also help collect critical information, and they analyze the resulting data to help investigators zero in on a cause for a disease. With the recent outbreaks of diseases such as swine and bird flu, Ebola, and now COVID-19, the role that epidemiologists and biostatisticians play is more important than ever. Features: * Discusses the crucial roles of statistics in early disease detection. * Outlines the concepts and methods of disease surveillance. * Covers surveillance techniques for communicable diseases like Zika and chronic diseases such as cancer. * Gives real world examples of disease investigations including smallpox, syphilis, anthrax, yellow fever, and microcephaly (and its relationship to the Zika virus). Via the process of identifying an outbreak, finding its cause, and developing a plan to prevent its reoccurrence, this book tells the story of how medical and public health professionals use statistics to help mitigate the effects of disease. This book will help readers understand how statisticians and epidemiologists help combat the spread of such diseases in order to improve public health across the world.

The integrated nested Laplace approximation (INLA) is a recent computational method that can fit Bayesian models in a fraction of the time required by typical Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods. INLA focuses on marginal inference on the model parameters of latent Gaussian Markov random fields models and exploits conditional independence properties in the model for computational speed. Bayesian Inference with INLA provides a description of INLA and its associated R package for model fitting. This book describes the underlying methodology as well as how to fit a wide range of models with R. Topics covered include generalized linear mixed-effects models, multilevel models, spatial and spatio-temporal models, smoothing methods, survival analysis, imputation of missing values, and mixture models. Advanced features of the INLA package and how to extend the number of priors and latent models available in the package are discussed. All examples in the book are fully reproducible and datasets and R code are available from the book website. This book will be helpful to researchers from different areas with some background in Bayesian inference that want to apply the INLA method in their work. The examples cover topics on biostatistics, econometrics, education, environmental science, epidemiology, public health, and the social sciences.

The developing countries are recelvmg generous Government Offices, and commercial organizations attention from experts, officials and academics drawn deserve our sincere thanks for their attention to our from a wide spectrum of specialist interests. Some of this many enquiries. In particular, we would like to thank effort is directed towards a solution of several of the the officials of the Planning Board and the Central world's most pressing problems, including ill-health, Statistical Office, Kuwait Municipality, University of under-nourishment, and rapid population growth, but Kuwait, and the Kuwait Oil Company. The following other workers are more concerned with the less immedi- individuals deserve our special thanks: Mr. Ahmad al- ate but nonetheless very significant theoretical aspects Duaij, Mr. Fouad al Hussaini, Mr. Hamid Shwaib, Mr. of the developing countries. This book is an attempt to Abdulaziz aI-Hamdan, Mr. Fouad Haddad, Mr. Ahmad bridge the gap between these two approaches. al-Haj, Mr. Marwan 'Adra', Mr. Muhammad Sukhon, At this present juncture in time we are faced with Professor Abdul Fattah Ismail, Professor Dawlat Sadiq, the realization that the experience of Europe or North Professor Muhammad Mutwalli, Dr. Muhammad Shar- nubi, His Excellency Ibrahim Shatti, Dr. Noel Brehony, America may be of limited assistance in the interpretation Professor W. B. Fisher, Dr. John Brebner, Dr. Alan of current trends in the developing world. Not only is Horan, Mrs.

Our series Cancer Prevention - Cancer Control continues to address the causes and prevention of cancer. In this volume, Hill, Elwood, and English bring together a rich resource summarizing the state of science underpinning the primary prevention of skin cancer. While skin cancer causes an increasing burden, particularly in populations of European origin, our understanding of the role of sun exposure together with the genetic components of skin cancer continues to grow. Given the emphasis on evidence-based medicine and public health prevention efforts, it is noteworthy that, although we can all access the same evidence base, countries around the world have had remarkably different responses to the application of this knowledge to prevent skin cancer. The outstanding contribution of the Australian public health community to the scientific understanding of skin cancer etiology and the translation of this knowledge into national prevention efforts uniquely positions the editors to compile this volume focused on the primary prevention of skin cancer. In so doing they draw on an international team of authors to present a "state of the science" summary of skin cancer prevention and to identify those areas where uncertainty remains. To achieve successful prevention of cancer we must translate our scientific knowledge base into effective prevention programs. This book offers the reader keen insights into the depth of our understanding of etiologic pathways for skin cancer. This etiologic science base is complemented by rigorous prevention science placing emphasis on the social context for effective and sustained prevention efforts.

The Life Table covers various important issues in life table construction and use. G. Wunsch presents a non-technical overview of the life table in the first chapter. G. Calot and A. Franco then give a detailed account of the estimation of the probability of dying between two consecutive ages, taking migration and the distribution of population at risk into account. E. Valkovics compares various methods of decomposing the difference in life expectancies. J. Anson deals with the problem of finding suitable indicators summarising the age distribution of mortality. Two chapters, respectively by G. Caselli and by E. Tabeau, F. Willekens, and F. van Poppel, are devoted to age, period, and cohort effects in mortality. Three chapters then deal more specifically with mortality by cause of death. F. Mesle first discusses the problem of adequately registering these causes. A.E. Kunst, J.P. Mackenbach, H. Lautenbach, F.B. Oei, and F. Bijlsma examine the gains in life expectancy obtained by eliminating major causes of death, taking into account competing causes of death. J. Duchene presents an introduction to multi-state morbidity-mortality models by cause. The competing risks model is thoroughly analysed by M. Mouchart and J.M. Rolin. E. Camboid and J.M. Robine show how the life table model can be extended for the assessment of the global health level of a population. The book ends with a concluding chapter by Jon Anson, which puts life table analysis in a broader sociological perspective.

Information on future mortality trends is essential for population forecasts, public health policy, actuarial studies, and many other purposes. Realising the importance of such needs, this volume contains contributions to the theory and practice of forecasting mortality in the relatively favourable circumstances in developed countries of Western Europe. In this context techniques from mathematical statistics and econometrics can provide useful descriptions of past mortality. The naive forecast obtained by extrapolating a fitted model may give as good a forecast as any but forecasting by extrapolation requires careful justification since it assumes the prolongation of historical conditions. On the other hand, whilst it is generally accepted that scientific and other advances will continue to impact on mortality, perhaps dramatically so, it is impossible to quantify more than the outline of future consequences with a strong degree of confidence. The decision to modify an extrapolation of a model fitted to historical data (or conversely choosing not to modify it) in order to obtain a forecast is therefore strongly influenced by subjective and judgmental elements, with the quality of the latter dependent on demographic, epidemiological and indeed perhaps more general considerations. The thread running through the book reflects therefore the necessity of integrating demographic, epidemiological, and statistical factors to obtain an improvement in the prediction of mortality.

Spatiotemporal Environmental Health Modelling: A Tractatus Stochasticus provides a holistic, conceptual and quantitative framework for Environmental Health Modelling in space-time. The holistic framework integrates two aspects of Environmental Health Science that have been previously treated separately: the environmental aspect, which involves the natural processes that bring about human exposure to harmful substances; and the health aspect, which focuses on the interactions of these substances with the human body. Some of the fundamental issues addressed in this work include variability, scale, uncertainty, and space-time connectivity. These topics are important in the characterization of natural systems and health processes. Spatiotemporal Environmental Health Modelling: A Tractatus Stochasticus explains why modern stochastics is the appropriate mechanical vehicle for addressing such issues in a rigorous way. In particular, modern stochastics incorporates concepts and methods from probability, classical statistics, geostatistics, statistical mechanics and field theory. The authors present a synthetic view of environmental health that embraces all of the various components and focuses on their mutual interactions. Spatiotemporal Environmental Health Modeling: A Tractatus Stochasticus includes new material on Bayesian maximum entropy estimation techniques and space-time random field estimation methods. The authors show why these methods have clear advantages over the classical geostatistical estimation procedures and how they can be used to provide accurate space-time maps of environmental health processes. Also included are expositions of diagrammatic perturbation and renormalization group analysis, which have not been previously discussed within the context of Environmental Health. Finally, the authors present stochastic indicators that can be used for large-scale characterization of contamination and investigations of health effects at the microscopic level. This book will be a useful reference to both researchers and practitioners of Environmental Health Sciences. It will appeal specifically to environmental engineers, geographers, geostatisticians, earth scientists, toxicologists, epidemiologists, pharmacologists, applied mathematicians, physicists and biologists.

Statistical models and methods for lifetime and other time-to-event data are widely used in many fields, including medicine, the environmental sciences, actuarial science, engineering, economics, management, and the social sciences. For example, closely related statistical methods have been applied to the study of the incubation period of diseases such as AIDS, the remission time of cancers, life tables, the time-to-failure of engineering systems, employment duration, and the length of marriages. This volume contains a selection of papers based on the 1994 International Research Conference on Lifetime Data Models in Reliability and Survival Analysis, held at Harvard University. The conference brought together a varied group of researchers and practitioners to advance and promote statistical science in the many fields that deal with lifetime and other time-to-event-data. The volume illustrates the depth and diversity of the field. A few of the authors have published their conference presentations in the new journal Lifetime Data Analysis (Kluwer Academic Publishers).