|
Epi Wit & Wisdom Resources
The Lay Epidemiologist’s
Required Reading List, Part Two (2 of 2)
By Karyn
Pomerantz
[Editor’s note:
This continues the list of books we began publishing last month. As
mentioned then, epidemiologists can recommend the following books and
articles to their friends and acquaintances who want to understand
epidemiologic studies. We have added the last two books as our
favorites.]
7. Studying a Study and Testing
a Test: How to Read the Medical Literature, R. K. Riegelman & R. P.
Hirsch, Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1989.
Written for clinicians and
health science students, Studying a Study also can serve the
educational needs of people considering participation in a study or
wishing to know more about research design. Riegelman and Hirsch
provide an analytic framework for approaching the medical literature.
They delineate the five major components of this
framework--assignment, assessment, analysis, interpretation and
extrapolation--and apply them to the major study designs. Interspersed
within these chapters are “flaw-catching exercises,” simulated
scenarios that illustrate a particular bias or error. A checklist of
“questions to ask in studying a study” leads the reader systematically
through a critical review of an article. Subsequent chapters deal with
rates, diagnostic testing and statistical tests. While numerical
calculations are few and simple, readers familiar with and interested
in research ideas may be the best match for this book. It is extremely
well organized, and the level of jargon is low.
8. The Health Detective’s
Handbook: A Guide to the Investigation of Environmental Health Hazards
by Non-professionals, M. S. Legator, B. L. Harper & M. J. Scott, eds.
Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985
This book follows the “barefoot
epidemiologist” model by instructing the public to conduct its own
epidemiological investigations of environmental concerns. The authors
have targeted people who have a high-school education or more but who
do not have any education in the biological disciplines. Bolstered by
an extensive bibliography and resource list, the book addresses the
issues of community organization and legal recourse as well as survey
construction, study design, statistical analysis and causality. The
chapters on survey and study design are presented simply and clearly.
Although it would be difficult to understand the chapter on
statistical analysis without prior introduction to statistics, the
Handbook is a wonderful tool for activists committed to investigating
their community’s environmental health.
9. The Data Game: Controversies
in Social Science Statistics, M. H. Maier, Sharpe Inc., Armonk, NY,
1991
Written for undergraduate and
graduate students in statistics and research methods, this book offers
material that is accessible and easy to understand by the general
public. It supplements many of the books above by emphasizing the data
that drives statistical results and policy decisions. It should be
required for all high school or college students interested in
improving their “data literacy.” The contents cover a wide range of
social subjects: crime, housing, labor, health, education, economics
and government. Maier portrays some of the major controversies in
these areas by analyzing the types of data used to solve a problem.
For example, are increases in some cancer incidence rates due to
increased detection through screening or autopsy, or due to an actual
increase in risk?
Maier classifies the major
causes of statistical controversies into five major categories:
“trendy headlines” with which newsmakers generate sensational stories
to grab attention; “misleading statistics” in which data are
misrepresented and repeated until they become highly respectable
barometers of reality; “missing statistics” when data on poverty rates
or corporate earnings may be absent to preserve status quo;
“conflicting statistics” resulting from differences in measurement
such as the classification of crime as blue versus white collar; and
the “conceptualization” and organization of data as absolute or
relative values, as means or medians.
One of the many strengths of
this book is its class consciousness. Maier doesn’t pretend that
research is apolitical. He consistently reminds his audience that the
powerful will try to use data to protect their position. He notes that
“uncorrected statistical falsehood (involving women, immigrants and
children) stands in contrast to disputed statistics involving
corporate profits and wealthy individuals which had prompted widely
disseminated corrections to the original, ostensibly faulty numbers.
In general, we learn more often about disputed data when the issue
involves the rich and powerful than when the controversies concern
data involving the poor and powerless.”
10. Biomedical Bestiary: An
Epidemiologic Guide to Flaws and Fallacies in the Medical Literature,
M. Michael, W. T. Boyce & A. Wilcox, Little Brown and Company Boston,
1984
According to the descriptive
material accompanying this book, “Biomedical Bestiary enlists the help
of 16 ‘beasts’ to illustrate the flaws that are known to hide in tests
and statistics. Following introductory information on the ‘beasts’
haunts and habitats, separate chapters focus on the particular
problems in the literature manifested in the form of the Grand
Confounder, Regression Meany, and the formidable Test Bloater, to name
just a few. The reader learns where they hide; what they do; and the
specific effect they have on test results.
Each chapter begins with a
hypothetical case presentation of a study that contains the flaw in
question. The nature of the fallacy is then reviewed, as well as the
means by which it is detected. The chapters end with bibliographies of
review articles and actual examples of studies that have been affected
by the flaw under discussion. A glossary of common epidemiologic and
statistical terms supplements the text.
11. Investigating Disease
Patterns: The Science of Epidemiology, P. Stolley & T. Lasky,
Scientific American Library/WH Freeman, New York 1995
This is the only book of its
kind in epidemiology—a beautifully illustrated book in Scientific
American style which tells the story of epidemiology in terms
laypersons can understand and epidemiologists will appreciate.
According to a recent review in JAMA, “Stolley and Lasky invite the
reader on an exciting and comprehensive tour of the discipline of
epidemiology. They trace its evolution and techniques from early
beginnings to the most recent developments. At the end, one is left
with a broad understanding of the progress of epidemiology as a
science, its achievement, and its future directions...The authors’
goal of conveying at least some of the excitement, importance and
challenge of the field of epidemiology...is more than well
realized.... Epidemiologists will welcome this volume as it provides
the interested lay public an excellent overview of some of the
complicated issues tackled by public health professionals.”
Published May 1996
|
