Bioenvironmental and public health statistics (Q1567444)

[The articles of this volume will not be indexed individually.] This voluminous handbook provides an extensive up-to-date survey of statistical concepts and methods related to medical applications in the widest sense. It contains 36 contributions which are divided into 15 parts of quite variable size. The book starts with an overview on ``Bioenvironment and public health: Statistical perspectives.'' (Ch. 1 by P.K. Sen). This is followed by a part on general methodology which covers a broad range of topics and is by far the most extensive part of the volume: Ch. 2: ``Some examples of random process environmental data analysis.'' (D.R. Brillinger); Ch. 3: ``Modeling infectious diseases -- Aids.'' (L. Billard); Ch. 4: ``On some multiplicity problems and multiple comparison procedures in biostatistics.'' (Y. Hochberg and P.H. Westfall); Ch. 5: ``Analysis of longitudinal data.'' (J.M. Singer and D.F. Andrade); Ch. 6: ``Regression models for survival data.'' (R.A. Johnson and J.P. Klein); Ch. 7: ``Generalised linear models for independent and dependent responses.'' (B.F. Qaqish and J.S. Preisser); Ch. 8: ``Hierarchical and empirical Bayes methods for environmental risk assessments.'' (G. Datta, M. Ghosh and L.A. Waller); Ch. 9: ``Nonparametrics in bioenvironmental and public health statistics.'' (P.K. Sen); Ch. 10: ``Estimation and comparison of growth and dose-response curves in the presence of purposeful censoring.'' (P.W. Stewart). The third part is nearly as extensive and sheds some light on various aspects of environmental epidemiology: Ch. 11: ``Spatial statistical methods for environmental epidemiology.'' (A.B. Lawson and N. Cressie); Ch. 12: ``Evaluating diagnostic tests in public health.'' (M. Pepe, W. Leisenring and C. Rutter); Ch. 13: ``Statistical issues in inhalation toxicology.'' (E. Weller, L. Ryan and D. Dockery); Ch. 14: ``Quantitative potency estimation to measure risk with bioenvironmental hazards.'' (A.J. Bailer and W.W. Piegorsch); Ch. 15: ``The analysis of case-control data: Epidemiologic studies of familial aggregation.'' (N.M. Laird, G.M. Fitzmaurice and A.G. Schwartz); Ch. 16: ``Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel techniques: Applications involving epidemiologic survey data.'' (D.B. Hall, R.F. Woolson, W.R. Clarke and M.F. Jones); Ch. 17: ``Measurement error models for environmental and occupational health applications.'' (R.H. Lyles and L.L. Kupper); Ch. 18: ``Statistical perspectives in clinical epidemiology.'' (S.I. Bangdiwala and S.R. Muñoz). The remaining parts deal with substantially more specialized topics. There are two contributions to crossover designs: Ch. 19: ``ANOVA and ANOCOVA for two-period crossover trial data: New vs. standard.'' (S. Ghosh and L.D. Fairchild); Ch. 20: ``Statistical methods for crossover designs in bioenvironmental and public health studies.'' (G.E. Tudor, G.G. Koch and D. Catellier). The next two parts are devoted to human reproduction and genetic models: Ch. 21: ``Statistical models for human reproduction.'' (C.M. Suchindran and H.P. Koo); Ch. 22: ``Statistical methods for reproductive risk assessment.'' (S. Mazumdar, Y. Xu, D.R. Mattison, N.B. Sussman and V.C. Arena); Ch. 23: ``Selection biases of samples and their resolutions.'' (R. Chakraborty and C.R. Rao); Ch. 24: ``Genomic sequences and quasi-multivariate CATANOVA.'' (H.P. Pinheiro, F. Seillier-Moiseiwitsch, P.K. Sen and J. Eron Jr.). This is followed by three contributions on survival analysis and competing risks and by two articles on health care: Ch. 25: ``Statistical methods for multivariate failure time data and competing risks.'' (R.A. DeMasi); Ch. 26: ``Bounds on joint survival probabilities with positively dependent competing risks.'' (S.K. Sarkar and K. Ghosh); Ch. 27: ``Modeling multivariate failure time data.'' (L.X. Clegg, J. Cai and P.K. Sen); Ch. 28: ``The cost-effectiveness ratio in the analysis of health care programs.'' (J.C. Gardiner, C.J. Bradley and M. Huebner); Ch. 29: ``Quality-of-life: Statistical validation and analysis -- an example from a clinical trial.'' (B. Hosmane, C. Maurath and R. Manski). Finally, there is a diversity of seven parts containing a single contribution each: Ch. 30: ``Carcinogenic potency: Statistical perspectives.'' (A. Dewanji); Ch. 31: ``Statistical applications in cardiovascular disease.'' (E.R. DeLong and D.M. DeLong); Ch. 32: ``Medical informatics and health care systems: Biostatistical and epidemilogic perspectives.'' (J. Zǎroǎ); Ch. 33: ``Methods of establishing in vitro - in vivo relationships for modified release drug products.'' (D.T. Mauger and V.M. Chinchilli); Ch. 34: ``Statistics in psychiatric research.'' (S. Mazumdar, P.R. Houck and C.F. Reynolds III); Ch. 35: ``Bridging the biostatistics - epidemiology gap.'' (L.J. Edwards); Ch. 36: ``Biodiversity - Measurement and analysis.'' (S.P. Mukherjee). The book is supplemented by a rich subject index which serves as a guide to the distinct contributions. Due to the diversity of topics, this handbook is a very useful introductoy source for basic and advanced concepts in biostatistics and epidemiology.