Reviews and Notes: Primer of Epidemiology

Primer of Epidemiology

Fourth edition. Gary D. Friedman. 363 pages. New York: McGraw-Hill; 1994. $22.00.

Friedman, director of research at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program in California, has provided an easy-to-read primer replete with relevant clinical examples. Refreshingly, he begins by stating that epidemiology is not a rapidly changing discipline. Lest readers be totally put at ease, the new fourth edition includes discussions of the proportional mortality rate, the coefficient and intraclass correlation coefficient, open and closed cohorts, Kaplan-Meier survival analysis, quality-adjusted life years, and a long (the author's word) discussion of a population-based case–control study of cancer. A new "Quick Review Chapter" lists the points covered in each. The topical problems at the end of each chapter include alcohol and myocardial infarction and coffee and cancer of the urinary bladder (both examples are from the chapter on case–control studies); answers are listed at the end. Recommended reading for every clinician without a degree in epidemiology, and a good buy.