Statistical Methods in Public and Community Health

by David F. Duncan, John B. White

This book fills the enormous need for a solid introduction to biostatistics for the growing majority of students who are entering community health or public health from outside of biological sciences or mathematics. Since the first Master Degree in Community Health was offered in the 1960s, there has been a dramatic growth in the field inside and outside of the schools of public health and schools of medicine. Students in these programs often have less experience in mathematics and biological sciences. In addition, with the more recent growth of large numbers of undergraduates in community health programs, more students who lack a significant mathematics background are taking biostatistics. Text in this field are generally written under the assumption that all students using the text will have a background that includes intermediate calculus, matrix algebra, zoology, microbiology, genetics, and both animal and human anatomy and physiology. The bulk of examples and problems in the traditional biostatistics texts were drawn from laboratory research in the biomedical science, water sampling and field biology, and agricultural experiments. As a result, many public and community health students find these texts to be excessively challenging, incredibly boring, and difficult to master. Authors typically place emphasis on human health examples and problems from medical research literature. Most public and community health students do not have a background in nursing or medicine and find these texts to be as difficult to understand and master as those drawn from physiology and molecular genetics. Furthermore, even those students who understand these examples are not being shown why or how the statistics are used in community health. This book will use community health literature, examples, and techniques to help orient students to appropriate uses of statistics in their chosen field. Each topic will be presented in the context of how it fits into community health research and practice in terms of purpose, implementation, and interpretation. Chapter topics/titles Why do we use statistics in community health?; How do we gather data in community health?; How do we manage community health data?; How do community health researchers describe data distributions?; How do odds affect community health research?; How do probability distributions affect community health research; Why are sampling distributions important to community health?; How precise are our estimates about a community's health?; How do we construct a testable hypothesis about community health issues?; How do we test hypothesis about nominal/ordinal data in community health?; How do we test hypotheses on interval and ratio data in community health?; How do we know multiple groups differ in community health?; How do we measure the strength of a relationship in community health?; What do we do when our community health data doesn't fit other tests?; What are the vital statistics in community health?

350 pages, Hardcover