This unique volume focuses on the 'tools' of medical statistics. It contains over 500 concepts or methods, all of which are explained very clearly and in detail.Each chapter focuses on a specific field and its applications. There are about 20 items in each chapter with each item independent of one another and explained within one page (plus references). The structure of the book makes it extremely handy for solving targeted problems in this area.As the goal of the book is to encourage students to learn more combinatorics, every effort has been made to provide them with a not only useful, but also enjoyable and engaging reading.This handbook plays the role of 'tutor' or 'advisor' for teaching and further learning. It can also be a useful source for 'MOOC-style teaching'.

As the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) spread around the world, so did theories, stories, and conspiracy beliefs about it. These theories infected communities from the halls of Congress to Facebook groups, spreading quickly in newspapers, on various social media and between friends. They spurred debate about the origins, treatment options and responses to the virus, creating distrust towards public health workers and suspicion of vaccines. This book examines the most popular Covid-19 theories, connecting current conspiracy beliefs to long-standing fears and urban legends. By examining the vehicles and mechanisms of Covid-19 conspiracy, readers can better understand how theories spread and how to respond to misinformation.

In 1986, the emergence of a novel brain disease in British cattle presented a unique challenge to scientists. How that challenge was addressed has been the subject of a public inquiry and numerous academic studies conducted to date. However, none of these investigations has sought to examine the reasoning of scientists during this critical period in the public health of the UK. Using concepts and techniques in informal logic, argumentation and fallacy theory, this study reconstructs and evaluates the reasoning of scientists in the ten-year period between 1986 and 1996. Specifically, a form of presumptive reasoning is described in which extensive use is made of arguments traditionally identified as informal fallacies. In the context of the adverse epistemic conditions that confronted scientists during the BSE epidemic, these arguments were anything but fallacious, serving instead to confer a number of epistemic gains upon scientific inquiry. This book argues for a closer integration of philosophy with public health science, an integration that is exemplified by the case of scientific reasoning during the BSE affair. It will therefore be of interest to advanced students, academics, researchers and professionals in the areas of public health science and epidemiology, as well as philosophical disciplines such as informal logic, argumentation and fallacy theory and epistemology.

Survival data analysis is a very broad field of statistics, encompassing a large variety of methods used in a wide range of applications, and in particular in medical research. During the last twenty years, several extensions of "classical" survival models have been developed to address particular situations often encountered in practice. This book aims to gather in a single reference the most commonly used extensions, such as frailty models (in case of unobserved heterogeneity or clustered data), cure models (when a fraction of the population will not experience the event of interest), competing risk models (in case of different types of event), and joint survival models for a time-to-event endpoint and a longitudinal outcome. Features Presents state-of-the art approaches for different advanced survival models including frailty models, cure models, competing risk models and joint models for a longitudinal and a survival outcome Uses consistent notation throughout the book for the different techniques presented Explains in which situation each of these models should be used, and how they are linked to specific research questions Focuses on the understanding of the models, their implementation, and their interpretation, with an appropriate level of methodological development for masters students and applied statisticians Provides references to existing R packages and SAS procedure or macros, and illustrates the use of the main ones on real datasets This book is primarily aimed at applied statisticians and graduate students of statistics and biostatistics. It can also serve as an introductory reference for methodological researchers interested in the main extensions of classical survival analysis.

Applied Problem-Solving in Healthcare Management is a practical textbook devoted to developing and strengthening problem-solving and decision-making leadership competencies of healthcare administration students and healthcare management professionals. Built upon the University of Minnesota Master of Healthcare Administration Program's Problem-Solving Method, the text describes the "never assume" mindset and the structured method that drive evidence-based, action-oriented problem-solving. The "never assume" mindset requires healthcare leaders to understand themselves and their stakeholders, and to engage in waves of divergent and convergent thinking. This structured method guides the problem solver through the phases of defining, studying, and acting on complex interrelated organizational problems that involve multiple root causes. The book also describes how the Problem-Solving Method is complementary to quality improvement methods and can be used in healthcare organizations along with Lean, Design Thinking, and Human Centered Design. Providing step-by-step instruction including useful tips, tools, activities, and case studies, this effective resource demonstrates the utility of the method for all types of health organization settings including health systems, hospitals, clinics, population health, and long-term care. For students taking health management, capstone, and experiential learning courses, including internship and residency projects, this book allows them to test and apply their problem-solving and decision-making skills to real-world situations. Beyond the classroom, it is an indispensable resource for organizations seeking to enhance the problem-solving skills of their workforce. The authors of the text have nearly 75 years of combined experience in healthcare management, leadership, and professional consulting, and teaching and advising healthcare administration students in classrooms, on student capstone, internship and residency projects, and case competitions. Synthesizing their expertise, this text serves as a guide for those who wish to strengthen their problem-solving abilities to systematically identify, analyze, study, and solve pressing organizational challenges in healthcare settings. Key Features: Describes a mindset and a structured problem-solving method that builds leadership competencies Encourages a step-by-step problem-solving approach to define, study, and act on problems to drive action-oriented solutions Supports experiential learning and coaching for students and professionals early in their careers, applicable especially to healthcare management, capstone, and student consulting courses, internship and residency projects, case competitions, and professional development in organizations Compares the Problem-Solving Method to other complementary methods used in many healthcare organizations, including Lean, Design Thinking, and Human Centered Design Includes access to the fully downloadable eBook as well as ancillary materials such as Instructor's Manual and Sample Syllabi

The Plague Years collects scholarly and essayistic reflections on literary, visual, and sonic representations of the COVID-19 and other pandemics. These are placed alongside poetry and short fiction written in the first two years of quarantine or isolation. This range expresses the intellectual and imaginative struggle and ingenuity entailed in coming to terms with the rampant spread of disease and its emotional, cultural, and political consequences. The contributions are from diverse contexts: Africa (from Egypt to South Africa), China, Japan, the US, and Scandinavia. They consider some of the array of contemporary engagements: poems translated from Mandarin about the traumas of the frontline, Chinese calligraphic poetry printed on cartons of PPE, comments on the literary history of representing epidemics and pandemics, political analyses of the post-truth present, and the role of life-writing and gaming in an interrupted world. Given the generative and creative obliquity of many of its parts, this collection shifts how one thinks about the diseased present and the archival pasts on which it draws. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of English Studies in Africa.

"This very informative book introduces classical and novel statistical methods that can be used by theoretical and applied biostatisticians to develop efficient solutions for real-world problems encountered in clinical trials and epidemiological studies. The authors provide a detailed discussion of methodological and applied issues in parametric, semi-parametric and nonparametric approaches, including computationally extensive data-driven techniques, such as empirical likelihood, sequential procedures, and bootstrap methods. Many of these techniques are implemented using popular software such as R and SAS."- Vlad Dragalin, Professor, Johnson and Johnson, Spring House, PA "It is always a pleasure to come across a new book that covers nearly all facets of a branch of science one thought was so broad, so diverse, and so dynamic that no single book could possibly hope to capture all of the fundamentals as well as directions of the field. The topics within the book's purview-fundamentals of measure-theoretic probability; parametric and non-parametric statistical inference; central limit theorems; basics of martingale theory; Monte Carlo methods; sequential analysis; sequential change-point detection-are all covered with inspiring clarity and precision. The authors are also very thorough and avail themselves of the most recent scholarship. They provide a detailed account of the state of the art, and bring together results that were previously scattered across disparate disciplines. This makes the book more than just a textbook: it is a panoramic companion to the field of Biostatistics. The book is self-contained, and the concise but careful exposition of material makes it accessible to a wide audience. This is appealing to graduate students interested in getting into the field, and also to professors looking to design a course on the subject." - Aleksey S. Polunchenko, Department of Mathematical Sciences, State University of New York at Binghamton This book should be appropriate for use both as a text and as a reference. This book delivers a "ready-to-go" well-structured product to be employed in developing advanced courses. In this book the readers can find classical and new theoretical methods, open problems and new procedures. The book presents biostatistical results that are novel to the current set of books on the market and results that are even new with respect to the modern scientific literature. Several of these results can be found only in this book.

Bayesian Analysis of Infectious Diseases -COVID-19 and Beyond shows how the Bayesian approach can be used to analyze the evolutionary behavior of infectious diseases, including the coronavirus pandemic. The book describes the foundation of Bayesian statistics while explicating the biology and evolutionary behavior of infectious diseases, including viral and bacterial manifestations of the contagion. The book discusses the application of Markov Chains to contagious diseases, previews data analysis models, the epidemic threshold theorem, and basic properties of the infection process. Also described are the chain binomial model for the evolution of epidemics. Features: Represents the first book on infectious disease from a Bayesian perspective. Employs WinBUGS and R to generate observations that follow the course of contagious maladies. Includes discussion of the coronavirus pandemic as well as many examples from the past, including the flu epidemic of 1918-1919. Compares standard non-Bayesian and Bayesian inferences. Offers the R and WinBUGS code on at www.routledge.com/9780367633868

This book presents models describing HIV transmission rates at population level, discussing the main statistical methods and analytical interventions. It also assesses the practical applicability of the various modelling techniques, offering readers insights into what methods are available and, more importantly, when they should be used to address HIV transmission at global level. The book includes realistic simulation models fitted to clarify the rate of HIV mother-to-child transmission (HIV MTCT), and substantiates the conclusions that can be drawn as well as the appropriate time for making global-level clinical decisions concerning people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIVs). Intended for students, academics and researchers, the book offers more than just an introduction to the topic - it also features in-depth, yet easy-to-understand, descriptions of a new mathematical/statistical HIV mother-to-child transmission model, making it a useful resource for clinicians, public health workers and policymakers involved in implementing HIV-prevention programmes at national /global level.

This major work with an internationally famous list of contributors deals with the ways in which needs assessment, service, evaluation, and public health and social policy may improve the care of elderly people in all societies. It discusses the methodology of epidemiological studies, risk factors, and the most common problems and diseases in old age.

The book presents the latest advances in research into health effects of air pollution, with heavy motor vehicle traffic or cigarette smoke as the exemplar of pollution. The airways are the first-line defense system against pollution. The book focuses on respiratory ailments underlain by inflammation, increased susceptibility to infection, particularly acquired during harsh environmental conditions and exposures to particulate matter or pathogens. The importance of astute analysis of lung function for early diagnosis of disorders is underscored. A knowledge deficit concerning the aerosolized drug delivery through the airways also is addressed. Recent developments and viewpoints in the field of environmental health hazards as well as methodological advances in their assessment are provided. The book will be of interest to pulmonologists, healthcare providers, researchers and clinicians engaged in environment-related respiratory diseases, but also to policy makers concerned with clean ambient air quality.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected communities of color while highlighting the prevalence of structural racism in the United States. This crucial collection of essays, written by leading scholars from the fields of communications, political science, health, philosophy, and geography, explores the manifold ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted upon Black, Latinx, and Indigenous communities and the way we see race relations in the United States. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the significance of U.S. health inequalities, which the World Health Organization defines as "avoidable [and] unfair." It has also highlighted structural racism, specifically, institutions, practices, values, customs, and policies that differentially allocate resources and opportunities so as to increase inequity among racial groups. Navarro and Hernandez therefore argue that the COVID-19 pandemic has unleashed a race war in America that has further marginalized communities of color by limiting access to resources by different racial and ethnic minorities, particularly women within these communities. Moreover, the systemic policies of the past that upheld or failed to address the unequal social conditions affecting Blacks, Latinxs, and other minorities have now been magnified with COVID-19. The volume concludes by offering recommendations to prevent future humanitarian crises from exacerbating racial divisions and having a disproportionate impact upon ethnic minorities. This timely volume will be of great interest to those interested in the study of race and the social impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected communities of color while highlighting the prevalence of structural racism in the United States. This crucial collection of essays, written by leading scholars from the fields of communications, political science, health, philosophy, and geography, explores the manifold ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted upon Black, Latinx, and Indigenous communities and the way we see race relations in the United States. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the significance of U.S. health inequalities, which the World Health Organization defines as "avoidable [and] unfair." It has also highlighted structural racism, specifically, institutions, practices, values, customs, and policies that differentially allocate resources and opportunities so as to increase inequity among racial groups. Navarro and Hernandez therefore argue that the COVID-19 pandemic has unleashed a race war in America that has further marginalized communities of color by limiting access to resources by different racial and ethnic minorities, particularly women within these communities. Moreover, the systemic policies of the past that upheld or failed to address the unequal social conditions affecting Blacks, Latinxs, and other minorities have now been magnified with COVID-19. The volume concludes by offering recommendations to prevent future humanitarian crises from exacerbating racial divisions and having a disproportionate impact upon ethnic minorities. This timely volume will be of great interest to those interested in the study of race and the social impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.

A truly definitive work, this magisterial study draws on the latest evidence from across Europe to show in exhaustive detail the nature of the disease, its origin, spread, mortality, and its profound impact on history. The Black Death was a disaster of huge magnitude, shaking medieval Europe and beyond to its economic and social core. Building upon his acclaimed study of 2004, Ole Benedictow here draws upon new scholarship and research to present a comprehensive, definitive account of the Black Death and its impact on European history. The medical and epidemiological characteristics of the disease, its geographical origin, its spread across Asia Minor, the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and Russia, and the mortality in the countries and regions for which there are satisfactory studies, are clearly presented and thoroughly discussed. The pattern, pace and seasonality of the spread of the disease reflect current medical work and standard studies on the epidemiology of bubonic plague. Benedictow's findings make it clear that the true mortality rate was far higher than had been previously thought: some 60% of Europe's population. In the light of those findings, the discussion of the Black Death as a turning point in history takes on a new significance.

This third edition volume expands on the previous editions with updated chapters on longitudinal studies, randomized trials, evidence-based decisions making, and a new section on changing health-related behaviors. The chapters in this book are organized into six parts: Part One focuses on framing clinical research questions and choosing a suitable design; biases that may occur in clinical research; and the ethics associated with doing conducting research on humans. Parts Two through Four discuss designs, measurements, and analysis that pertain to evaluation of risk in longitudinal studies; assessment of therapy in controlled trials; and evaluation of diagnostic tests. Part Five presents methods used in various components of evidence-based decision-making; and Part Six highlights interventions focused on changing health-related behaviors. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of various types of bias, step-by-step, readily reproducible protocols for different research designs, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Cutting-edge and thorough, Clinical Epidemiology: Methods and Protocols, Third Edition is a valuable resource for clinicians and researchers who want to expand their works to humans and use their findings in the health system.

This open access book examines health trajectories and health transitions at different stages of the life course, including childhood, adulthood and later life. It provides findings that assess the role of biological and social transitions on health status over time. The essays examine a wide range of health issues, including the consequences of military service on body mass index, childhood obesity and cardiovascular health, socio-economic inequalities in preventive health care use, depression and anxiety during the child rearing period, health trajectories and transitions in people with cystic fibrosis and oral health over the life course. The book addresses theoretical, empirical and methodological issues as well as examines different national contexts, which help to identify factors of vulnerability and potential resources that support resilience available for specific groups and/or populations. Health reflects the ability of individuals to adapt to their social environment. This book analyzes health as a dynamic experience. It examines how different aspects of individual health unfold over time as a result of aging but also in relation to changing socioeconomic conditions. It also offers readers potential insights into public policies that affect the health status of a population.

Cancer Disparities, the latest in the Advances in Cancer Research series, provides invaluable information on the exciting and fast-moving field of cancer research. This latest volume presents a broad introduction to a spectrum of factors contributing to cancer disparities that include ancestral informative markers' role in properly identifying race based on genetic ancestry, basic biological pathways contributing to cancer disparities, epidemiological factors linked to cancer disparities, and social/behavioral factors influencing cancer disparities.

*Includes new chapters on Fellowship Grants and Career Development Awards designed for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and early-career faculty *Provides strategies to highlight the "overall impact" of the grant, one of the most important aspects determining NIH funding in a new chapter on Significance and Innovation *Provides step-by-step guidelines for grant structure and style alongside broader strategies for developing a research funding portfolio *Explains how to avoid common errors and pitfalls, supplying critical dos and don'ts that aid in writing solid grant proposals *Illustrates key concepts with extensive examples from successfully funded proposals

* The first book to explore the complex challenges of the Covid19 pandemic from an inter-disciplinary perspective. * Written by leaders across a range of different sectors that are impacted by the pandemic - medicine, business, law, higher education, government. * The book provides an accessible overview of some of the key tensions presented by the Covid19 pandemic to enable policymakers and researchers to gain insight quickly.

Cancer is a dreaded disease. One in two people will be diagnosed with cancer within their lifetime. Medical Statistics for Cancer Studies shows how cancer data can be analysed in a variety of ways, covering cancer clinical trial data, epidemiological data, biological data, and genetic data. It gives some background in cancer biology and genetics, followed by detailed overviews of survival analysis, clinical trials, regression analysis, epidemiology, meta-analysis, biomarkers, and cancer informatics. It includes lots of examples using real data from the author's many years of experience working in a cancer clinical trials unit. Features: A broad and accessible overview of statistical methods in cancer research Necessary background in cancer biology and genetics Details of statistical methodology with minimal algebra Many examples using real data from cancer clinical trials Appendix giving statistics revision.

COVID Transmission Modeling: An Insight into Infectious Diseases Mechanism provides an interdisciplinary overview of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis and covers various aspects of newer modeling techniques and practical solutions for health emergencies. This book aims to formulate various innovative and pragmatic mathematical, statistical, and epidemiological models using COVID-19 real data sets. It emphasizes interdisciplinary theoretical postulates derived from practical insights and knowledge of public health. Each of the book's 12 chapters provides invaluable and exploratory tools to enable explicit assumptions, highlights key health indicators, and determines the geometric progression and control measures of the disease. The present developed models will allow readers to extrapolate the exact reason for the outbreak and pave the way for scientific information on vaccine trials and socioeconomic, psychological, and disease burden worldwide. These advanced techniques of modeling and their applications are in greater need than ever for effective connection between mathematicians, statisticians, epidemiologists, researchers, clinicians, and policymakers for making appropriate decisions at the right time. With the advent of emerging health science, all models are demonstrated with real-life data sets and provided with illustrations and eye-catching graphs and diagrams so that the readers can easily understand the concept of COVID-19 pandemic interventions and their control measures, and their impact. Features Addresses all aspects of mitigation/control measures, estimation of transmission rate, economic impact assessment, genetic complexity of COVID-19, herd immunity, and various methods, including newer mathematical, statistical, and epidemiological models in the analysis of COVID-19 pandemic outbreak Covers the application of innovative, advanced statistical and epidemiological models and demonstrates possible solutions toward supportive treatment aspects of COVID-19 and its control measures Includes models that can easily be followed in formulating the mathematical derivations and key points Supplemented with ample illustrations, images, diagrams, and figures This book is aimed at postgraduate students studying medicine and healthcare, mathematics, and statistical information. Researchers will also find this book very helpful.

A Historical Introduction to Mathematical Modeling of Infectious Diseases: Seminal Papers in Epidemiology offers step-by-step help on how to navigate the important historical papers on the subject, beginning in the 18th century. The book carefully, and critically, guides the reader through seminal writings that helped revolutionize the field. With pointed questions, prompts, and analysis, this book helps the non-mathematician develop their own perspective, relying purely on a basic knowledge of algebra, calculus, and statistics. By learning from the important moments in the field, from its conception to the 21st century, it enables readers to mature into competent practitioners of epidemiologic modeling.

This book introduces the field of Health Web Science and presents methods for information gathering from written social media data. It explores the availability and utility of the personal medical information shared on social media platforms and determines ways to apply this largely untapped information source to healthcare systems and public health monitoring. Introducing an innovative concept for integrating social media data with clinical data, it addresses the crucial aspect of combining experiential data from social media with clinical evidence, and explores how the variety of available social media content can be analyzed and implemented. The book tackles a range of topics including social media's role in healthcare, the gathering of shared information, and the integration of clinical and social media data. Application examples of social media for health monitoring, along with its usage in patient treatment are also provided. The book also considers the ethical and legal issues of gathering and utilizing social media data, along with the risks and challenges that must be considered when integrating social media data into healthcare choices. With an increased interest internationally in E-Health, Health 2.0, Medicine 2.0 and the recent birth of the discipline of Web Science, this book will be a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners investigating this emerging topic.

Contains all you need to know to understand statistics in medicine. Medical Statistics Made Easy has been a perennial bestseller since the first edition was published (it is consistently a #1 bestseller in medical statistics on Amazon). It is recommended worldwide on a variety of courses and programmes, from undergraduate medicine, through to professional medical qualifications. It is a book of key statistics principles for anyone studying or working in medicine and healthcare who needs a basic overview of the subject. It is ideal for non-statisticians who need to understand how statistics are used and applied in medicine and medical research. Using a consistent format, the authors describe the most common statistical methods in turn and then rate them on how difficult they are to understand and how common they are. The worked examples that demonstrate the statistical method in action have been updated to include current articles from the medical literature and now feature a wider range of medical journals. This fourth edition continues with the same structure as the previous editions, with new sections on cut-off points and ROC curves, as well as a new chapter on choosing the right statistical test. It also features a completely revised and updated 'Statistics at work' section.

What disease is and how it affects humans is the focus of this primer. Designed to cover the basics of communicable and non-communicable diseases, the book provides a framework for understanding the major health problems in our society. Hurster uses the Biological Laws of Disease to frame each discussion and to demonstrate how these laws relate to the prepathogenesis and pathogenesis stages of the natural history of any disease. Considerable attention is given to the roles of the individual, the community, and the government in bringing about behavior change with respect to disease prevention, detection, control, and management.