Analytic procedures suitable for the study of human disease are scattered throughout the statistical and epidemiologic literature. Explanations of their properties are frequently presented in mathematical and theoretical language. This text provides a clear understanding of the statistical methods that are widely used in epidemiologic research without depending on advanced mathematical or statistical theory. By applying these methods to actual data, this book reveals the strengths and weaknesses of each analytic approach. The book combines techniques from the fields of statistics, biostatistic ... More

Analytic procedures suitable for the study of human disease are scattered throughout the statistical and epidemiologic literature. Explanations of their properties are frequently presented in mathematical and theoretical language. This text provides a clear understanding of the statistical methods that are widely used in epidemiologic research without depending on advanced mathematical or statistical theory. By applying these methods to actual data, this book reveals the strengths and weaknesses of each analytic approach. The book combines techniques from the fields of statistics, biostatistics, demography, and epidemiology to present an overview that does not require computational details of the statistical techniques described. Throughout, the text contains illuminating discussions with new elements for this edition, including the analysis of multi-level categorical data and simple, intuitive arguments that exponential survival times cause the hazard function to be constant. There are also new applied examples to illustrate such topics as the pitfalls of proportional mortality data, the analysis of matched pair categorical data, and the age-adjustment of mortality rates based on statistical models. The most important new feature is a chapter on Poisson regression analysis. This essential statistical tool permits the multivariable analysis of rates, probabilities, and counts.