With this book, Siegel, an internationally known demographer and gerontologist, has made a unique contribution to the fledgling fields of health demography, and the demography and epidemiology of aging. The book represents a felicitous union of epidemiology, gerontology, and demography, and appears to be the first and only comprehensive text on this subject now available. Drawing on a wide range of sciences in addition to demography, gerontology, and epidemiology, including medical sociology, biostatistics, public policy, bioethics, and molecular biology, the author treats theoretical and applied issues, links methods and findings, covers the material internationally, nationally, and locally, and while focusing on the elderly, treats the entire life course. The methods, materials, and pespectives of demography and epidemiology are brought to bear on such topics as the prospects for future increases in human longevity, the relative contribution of life style, environment, genetics, and chance in human longevity, the measurement of the share of healthy years in total life expectancy, the role of population growth in the rising costs of health care, and the applications of health demography in serving the health needs of local communities. The separate chapters systematically develop the topics of the sources and quality of health data; mortality, life tables, and the measurement of health status; the interrelationships of health, on the one hand, and mortality, fertility, migration, and age structure, on the other; health conditions in the less developed countries; the concepts and theories of aging and projections of the aged population; and local health applications, public health policy, and bioethical issues in health demography. Given its comprehensiveness, clarity, interdisciplinary scope, and authencity, this book appeals to a wide range of users, from students and teachers of medical sociology, the demography of aging, and public health studies to practitioners in these areas, both as a text in health demography and the demography/epidemiology of aging, and as a reference work in these fields.

Geographies of Plague Pandemics synthesizes our current understanding of the spatial and temporal dynamics of plague, Yersinia pestis. The environmental, political, economic, and social impacts of the plague from Ancient Greece to the modern day are examined. Chapters explore the identity of plague DNA, its human mortality, and the source of ancient and modern plagues. This book also discusses the role plague has played in shifting power from Mediterranean Europe to north-western Europe during the 500 years that plague has raged across the continent. The book demonstrates how recent colonial structures influenced the spread and mortality of plague while changing colonial histories. In addition, this book provides critical insight into how plague has shaped modern medicine, public health, and disease monitoring, and what role, if any, it might play as a terror weapon. The scope and breadth of Geographies of Plague Pandemics offers geographers, historians, biologists, and public health educators the opportunity to explore the deep connections among disease and human existence.

This book, commissioned by the World Health Organization (WHO) and written by international experts, provides consensus views on the most important issues related to allergic hypersensitivities. The text details predictive testing, diagnosis, epidemiological monitoring of intervention measures, sources of sensitizing agents, and mechanisms of action.
Contributors extensively cover allergic hypersensitivity reactions of the skin and the respiratory system. They present the current knowledge on hypersensitivity reactions of the gastrointestinal tract and kidneys. Major gaps in existing information about allergic hypersensitivities are highlighted and recommendations for future research are given. Practical methods are provided for establishing preventive programs.
Allergic Hypersensitivities Induced by Chemicals offers valuable information to both scientists and public health officials. This is a useful reference for health professionals in their work with allergies, allergens, and allergy sufferers.

Intended for ethologists and sociologists, this text examines the problem of defining the "meaning of illness", an interpretation developed within a society which can itself be studied and interpreted from without, from a variety of viewpoints depending on the academic discipline to which observation has been allocated; to ethnology, for example, the observation of linear-based societies; to sociology, that of industrial societies. The fact that these distinctions today are called into question is of little importance. They encourage a questioning of the relationships between the respective methods and objectives of the different disciplines. The local interpretation of illness is one thing, but it is quite possible that the interpretation of this interpretation could vary, depending on whether it was the product of different methods - (anthropological, sociological, historical) or on whether it was applied to different societies. The situation may become even more complicated, since the question can always be raised as to whether types of method and types of society are linked, whether one type of society implies one type of method.

This captivating study tells Mexico's best untold stories. The book takes the devastating 1833 cholera epidemic as its dramatic center and expands beyond this episode to explore love, lust, lies, and midwives. Parish archives and other sources tell us human stories about the intimate decisions, hopes, aspirations, and religious commitments of Mexican men and women as they made their way through the transition from the Viceroyalty of New Spain to an independent republic. In this volume Stevens shows how Mexico assumed a new place in Atlantic history as a nation coming to grips with modernization and colonial heritage, helping us to understand the paradox of a country with a reputation for fervent Catholicism that moved so quickly to disestablish the Church.

An Introduction to Environmental Epidemiology covers the basics of environmental exposure, health, and disease. Written to be easily accessible to readers with no formal training in epidemiology or statistics, this practical introduction is an ideal text/reference for students and professionals in nursing, medicine, industrial hygiene, occupational and environmental health, and general environmental science. It provides a target-organ oriented presentation of environmental hazards, with detailed discussions of selected exposures such as asbestos, lead, radon, and indoor and outdoor air pollutants. Major topics covered include:

Fuzzy Logic in Action: Applications in Epidemiology and Beyond, co-authored by Eduardo Massad, Neli Ortega, Laecio Barros, and Claudio Struchiner is a remarkable achievement. The book brings a major paradigm shift to medical sciences exploring the use of fuzzy sets in epidemiology and medical diagnosis arena. The volume addresses the most significant topics in the broad areas of epidemiology, mathematical modeling and uncertainty, embodying them within the framework of fuzzy set and dynamic systems theory. Written by leading contributors to the area of epidemiology, medical informatics and mathematics, the book combines a very lucid and authoritative exposition of the fundamentals of fuzzy sets with an insightful use of the fundamentals in the area of epidemiology and diagnosis. The content is clearly illustrated by numerous illustrative examples and several real world applications. Based on their profound knowledge of epidemiology and mathematical modeling, and on their keen understanding of the role played by uncertainty and fuzzy sets, the authors provide insights into the connections between biological phenomena and dynamic systems as a mean to predict, diagnose, and prescribe actions. An example is the use of Bellman-Zadeh fuzzy decision making approach to develop a vaccination strategy to manage measles epidemics in Sao Paulo. The book offers a comprehensive, systematic, fully updated and self- contained treatise of fuzzy sets in epidemiology and diagnosis. Its content covers material of vital interest to students, researchers and practitioners and is suitable both as a textbook and as a reference. The authors present new results of their own in most of the chapters. In doing so, they reflect the trend to view fuzzy sets, probability theory and statistics as an association of complementary and synergetic modeling methodologies.

A Hands-On Approach to Teaching Introductory Statistics Expanded with over 100 more pages, Introduction to Statistical Data Analysis for the Life Sciences, Second Edition presents the right balance of data examples, statistical theory, and computing to teach introductory statistics to students in the life sciences. This popular textbook covers the mathematics underlying classical statistical analysis, the modeling aspects of statistical analysis and the biological interpretation of results, and the application of statistical software in analyzing real-world problems and datasets. New to the Second Edition A new chapter on non-linear regression models A new chapter that contains examples of complete data analyses, illustrating how a full-fledged statistical analysis is undertaken Additional exercises in most chapters A summary of statistical formulas related to the specific designs used to teach the statistical concepts This text provides a computational toolbox that enables students to analyze real datasets and gain the confidence and skills to undertake more sophisticated analyses. Although accessible with any statistical software, the text encourages a reliance on R. For those new to R, an introduction to the software is available in an appendix. The book also includes end-of-chapter exercises as well as an entire chapter of case exercises that help students apply their knowledge to larger datasets and learn more about approaches specific to the life sciences.

This book presents the methodology and applications of a range of important topics in statistics, and is designed for graduate students in Statistics and Biostatistics and for medical researchers. Illustrations and more than ninety exercises with solutions are presented. They are constructed from the research findings of the medical journals, summary reports of the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO), and practical situations. The illustrations and exercises are related to topics such as immunization, obesity, hypertension, lipid levels, diet and exercise, harmful effects of smoking and air pollution, and the benefits of gluten free diet. This book can be recommended for a one or two semester graduate level course for students studying Statistics, Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Health Sciences. It will also be useful as a companion for medical researchers and research oriented physicians.

Analyzing Health Data in R for SAS Users is aimed at helping health data analysts who use SAS accomplish some of the same tasks in R. It is targeted to public health students and professionals who have a background in biostatistics and SAS software, but are new to R. For professors, it is useful as a textbook for a descriptive or regression modeling class, as it uses a publicly-available dataset for examples, and provides exercises at the end of each chapter. For students and public health professionals, not only is it a gentle introduction to R, but it can serve as a guide to developing the results for a research report using R software. Features: Gives examples in both SAS and R Demonstrates descriptive statistics as well as linear and logistic regression Provides exercise questions and answers at the end of each chapter Uses examples from the publicly available dataset, Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) 2014 data Guides the reader on producing a health analysis that could be published as a research report Gives an example of hypothesis-driven data analysis Provides examples of plots with a color insert

Aimed at researchers and students , SAS Programming: The One-Day Course provides an introduction to the SAS programming language. It gives the reader a start in SAS programming and the basic data manipulations and statistical summaries that are available through SAS. The book has its origins in material prepared by the author for a one-day course in SAS programming, and the fact that it has been developed from a training course is reflected in the concise nature of the presentation. Unlike other introductory competitors on the market, this is a pocket-sized reference that does not clutter the programming techniques presented by trying to teach statistical techniques at the same time. Strong on explanations of how to carry out data manipulations that real-life data often call for, each programming technique is supported by tasks to develop skills and confidence. It also contains "tasks" for the reader, complete with solutions. Datasets and the programming code are available to download from www.crcpress.com/e_products/downloads. Once readers have mastered the topics covered in the book, they will be well placed to learn further aspects of SAS programming.

A Course in Large Sample Theory is presented in four parts. The first treats basic probabilistic notions, the second features the basic statistical tools for expanding the theory, the third contains special topics as applications of the general theory, and the fourth covers more standard statistical topics. Nearly all topics are covered in their multivariate setting. The book is intended as a first year graduate course in large sample theory for statisticians. It has been used by graduate students in statistics, biostatistics, mathematics, and related fields. Throughout the book there are many examples and exercises with solutions. It is an ideal text for self study.

?The presentation is consistently excellent. One, the writing is lucid and organized in a way that should be very natural for the clinical reader. Two, the text requires no background in mathematics and uses a minimum of symbols. And, three, the methodological concepts and clinical issues are well integrated through a number of carefully prepared and comprehensive examples.? Greg Samsa, Associate Director, Duke Center for Clinical Health Policy Research If a patient is older or younger than, sicker or healthier than, taller or shorter than or simply different from the subjects of a study, do the results pertain? Clinical Epidemiology & Evidence-based Medicine is a resource for all health-care workers involved in applying evidence to the care of their patients. Using clinical examples and citing liberally from the peer-reviewed literature, the book shows how statistical principles can improve medical decisions. Plus, as Katz shows how probability, risk and alternatives are fundamental considerations in all clinical decisions, he demonstrates the intuitive basis for using clinical epidemiolgy as a science underlying medical decisions. After reading this text, the practitioner should be better able to access, interpret, and apply evidence to patient care as well as better understand and control the process of medical decision making.

A number of books written by statisticians address the mathematical optimization of biological systems, but do not directly address statistical optimization. Statistical Optimization of Biological Systems covers the optimization of bioprocess systems in its entirety, devoting much-needed attention to the experimental optimization of biological systems using statistical techniques. Employing real-life bioprocess optimization problems and their solutions as examples, this book: Describes experimental design from identifying process variables to selecting a screening design, applying response surface methodology, and conducting regression modeling Demonstrates the statistical analysis and optimization of different experimental designs, the results of which are used to establish important variables and optimum settings Details the optimization techniques employed to determine optimum levels of the process variables for both single- and multiple-response systems Discusses important experimental designs, such as evolutionary operation programs and Taguchi's designs Delineates the concept of hybrid experimental design using the essence of a genetic algorithm Statistical Optimization of Biological Systems examines the complex nature of biological systems, the need for optimization, and the rationale of statistical and non-statistical optimization methods. More importantly, the book explains how to successfully apply mathematical and statistical techniques to the optimization of biological systems.

This book demonstrates that a pandemic of coronary heart disease occurred in North America, western and northern Europe, and Australia and New Zealand from the 1930s to about 2000. At its peak it caused more deaths than any other disease. The book examines and compares trends in coronary heart disease mortality rates for individual countries. The most detailed analyses are for the United States, where mortality rates are examined for race, sex, and age groups and for geographic regions. Popular explanations for the rise and fall of coronary heart disease mortality rates are examined.

Absolute Risk: Methods and Applications in Clinical Management and Public Health provides theory and examples to demonstrate the importance of absolute risk in counseling patients, devising public health strategies, and clinical management. The book provides sufficient technical detail to allow statisticians, epidemiologists, and clinicians to build, test, and apply models of absolute risk. Features: Provides theoretical basis for modeling absolute risk, including competing risks and cause-specific and cumulative incidence regression Discusses various sampling designs for estimating absolute risk and criteria to evaluate models Provides details on statistical inference for the various sampling designs Discusses criteria for evaluating risk models and comparing risk models, including both general criteria and problem-specific expected losses in well-defined clinical and public health applications Describes many applications encompassing both disease prevention and prognosis, and ranging from counseling individual patients, to clinical decision making, to assessing the impact of risk-based public health strategies Discusses model updating, family-based designs, dynamic projections, and other topics Ruth M. Pfeiffer is a mathematical statistician and Fellow of the American Statistical Association, with interests in risk modeling, dimension reduction, and applications in epidemiology. She developed absolute risk models for breast cancer, colon cancer, melanoma, and second primary thyroid cancer following a childhood cancer diagnosis. Mitchell H. Gail developed the widely used "Gail model" for projecting the absolute risk of invasive breast cancer. He is a medical statistician with interests in statistical methods and applications in epidemiology and molecular medicine. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and former President of the American Statistical Association. Both are Senior Investigators in the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health.

This book represents a brilliant primer and the tools and skills it equips the clinician with are designed to help them navigate the uncertainties of medical practice today. It is essential for those who wish to practice medicine in the best possible way for their patients.

The purpose of this book is to present methods for developing, evaluating and maintaining rater-mediated assessment systems. Rater-mediated assessments involve ratings that are assigned by raters to persons responding to constructed-response items (e.g., written essays and teacher portfolios) and other types of performance assessments. This book addresses the following topics: (1) introduction to the principles of invariant measurement, (2) application of the principles of invariant measurement to rater-mediated assessments, (3) description of the lens model for rater judgments, (4) integration of principles of invariant measurement with the lens model of cognitive processes of raters, (5) illustration of substantive and psychometric issues related to rater-mediated assessments in terms of validity, reliability, and fairness, and (6) discussion of theoretical and practical issues related to rater-mediated assessment systems. Invariant measurement is fast becoming the dominant paradigm for assessment systems around the world, and this book provides an invaluable resource for graduate students, measurement practitioners, substantive theorists in the human sciences, and other individuals interested in invariant measurement when judgments are obtained with rating scales.

Randomization, Masking, and Allocation Concealment is indispensable for any trial researcher who wants to use state of the art randomization methods, and also wants to be able to describe these methods correctly. Far too often the subtle nuances that distinguish proper randomization from flawed randomization are completely ignored in trial reports that state only that randomization was used, with no additional information. Experience has shown that in many cases, the type of randomization that was used was flawed. It is only a matter of time before medical journals and regulatory agencies come to realize that we can no longer rely on (or publish) flawed trials, and that flawed randomization in and of itself disqualifies a trial from being robust or high quality, even if that trial is of high quality otherwise. This book will help to clarify the role randomization plays in ensuring internal validity, and in drawing valid inferences from the data. The various chapters cover a variety of randomization methods, and are not limited to the most common (and most flawed) ones. Readers will come away with a profound understanding of what constitutes a valid randomization procedure, so that they can distinguish the valid from the flawed among not only existing methods but also methods yet to be developed.

Ebola: Clinical Patterns, Public Health Concerns is a concise description and discussion of the Ebola virus and disease. The intended audience is medical practitioners, including those working in endemic areas as well as health-facility planners and public health practitioners. The book fills an important gap between large texts covering not only Ebola but other hemorrhagic fever viruses and brief pamphlet-style publications on the public health aspects of the infection. In light of the recent large outbreak in West Africa, this book is a part of the developing foundation needed to deal with emerging diseases.

"All disasters are in some sense man-made." Setting the annus horribilis of 2020 in historical perspective, Niall Ferguson explains why we are getting worse, not better, at handling disasters. Disasters are inherently hard to predict. Pandemics, like earthquakes, wildfires, financial crises. and wars, are not normally distributed; there is no cycle of history to help us anticipate the next catastrophe. But when disaster strikes, we ought to be better prepared than the Romans were when Vesuvius erupted, or medieval Italians when the Black Death struck. We have science on our side, after all. Yet in 2020 the responses of many developed countries, including the United States, to a new virus from China were badly bungled. Why? Why did only a few Asian countries learn the right lessons from SARS and MERS? While populist leaders certainly performed poorly in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, Niall Ferguson argues that more profound pathologies were at work--pathologies already visible in our responses to earlier disasters. In books going back nearly twenty years, including Colossus, The Great Degeneration, and The Square and the Tower, Ferguson has studied the foibles of modern America, from imperial hubris to bureaucratic sclerosis and online fragmentation. Drawing from multiple disciplines, including economics, cliodynamics, and network science, Doom offers not just a history but a general theory of disasters, showing why our ever more bureaucratic and complex systems are getting worse at handling them. Doom is the lesson of history that this country--indeed the West as a whole--urgently needs to learn, if we want to handle the next crisis better, and to avoid the ultimate doom of irreversible decline.

Cannabis Physiopathology and Detection features an outstanding collection of contributions from leading researchers around the world. Papers were presented at the Second International Colloquium on Illicit Drugs, held at the French National Academy of Medicine in April 1992. The book reviews the latest clinical reports describing the effects of cannabis on the brain (imaging techniques, memory and psychomotor performance, cannabis, and schizophrenia), effects on reproduction (male and female), and carcinogenicity. Aspects of detection covered in the volume include methods, results of different testing groups, and legal issues associated with testing and detection. Cannabis Physiopathology and Detection will be an important addition to the reference collections of marijuana researchers, pathologists, government agencies, medical school libraries, and drug testers.

TEXTBOOK OF EPIDEMIOLOGY The gold standard in epidemiological texts In the second edition of Textbook of Epidemiology, a distinguished team of researchers deliver an extensively updated and comprehensive exploration of epidemiological methods, illuminating the tools for studying the distribution and risk factors of health states and events in populations. An introduction to epidemiological methods with recent and broadly applicable examples End-of-chapter self-assessment questions for readers to check their understanding of key concepts, with answer keys and further enrichment materials available on a companion website A brand-new chapter covering methods for systematic reviews and meta-analysis Accessible material appropriate for clinical practitioners and researchers from around the world Perfect for professionals working in clinical medicine and public health, Textbook of Epidemiology will also earn a place in the libraries of allied health professionals seeking a one-stop resource or to re-immerse themselves in specific methodological topics and practices.

The AIDS epidemic has spread worldwide, and nearly 300,000 cases have been reported in the United States alone. Statisticians and epidemiologists are called upon to design and correctly interpret studies on the prevention and control of disease caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and to estimate the magnitude and future course of the epidemic. In addition to a comprehensive discussion of methods for gauging the extent of the epidemic and forecasting AIDS incidence, this book presents methods and results concerning the risks of HIV transmission, the incubation period of HIV infection, markers of disease progression, prevention strategies, including strategies to protect the blood supply, and the evaluation of treatments and vaccines. These topics are presented quantitatively, with an emphasis on the strengths and weaknesses of available data. The book highlights how a naive statistical approach to the design or analysis of such studies can lead to seriously misleading results. The various methods of monitoring and forecasting HIV disease and AIDS incidence are given thorough treatment. These methods include back-calculation, which the authors developed; interpretations of survey data on HIV prevalence and incidence; mathematical models for HIV transmission; and approaches that combine different types of epidemiological data. Much of the material in this book - such as a discussion of methods for assessing safety of the blood supply. an evaluation of survey approaches and methods to project pediatric AIDS incidence - has not been previously published.