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Isobel Bray, Interpreting Epidemiologic Evidence: Strategies for Study Design and Analysis. David A Savitz. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. 336, £34.50 (HB). ISBN: 0-19-510840-X., International Journal of Epidemiology, Volume 33, Issue 6, December 2004, Page 1414, https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyh158
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My first impressions of this book were that while the topic seemed important, the text was perhaps too wordy to be easily accessible. By the end, however, I was convinced that this is a book every epidemiologist should read, or at least use as a reference text when designing and analysing studies. My initial judgement that it would be heavy-going for a new student of epidemiology remains unchanged, but the author states from the outset that this was not intended to be yet another standard text on epidemiology. Rather, the aim is to offer a comprehensive strategy for assessing the results of epidemiological studies.
The book focuses on the potential sources of bias in any study. For example, what are the most likely magnitude and direction of bias due to non-response, confounding, measurement error in the exposure variable, and misclassification of the outcome of interest? This text provides the knowledge and tools necessary to answer these questions, and many more, so that a researcher can make the most of limited resources when planning a study and learn as much as possible from existing data. The author draws heavily on the published literature (particularly in the fields of environmental and occupational epidemiology) to illustrate each point, which makes the text much easier to understand and digest. There are also plenty of methodological references for those wishing to study the issues raised in more detail.
