Customer Reviews

Fundamentals of Biostatistics (with CD-ROM)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is an easy-to-read volume on the implementation of statistics for medicinal applications. The author describes the following:

- measures of location i.e. medium white blood counts
- properties of the standard deviation and special case analyses
- graphic methods
- laws of probability
- gynecological problems
- demographic problems and inference
- hypothesis testing and confidence interval analysis
- goodness of fit for regression problems

This work would have a wide audience of readers throughout the
medical world. It is priced reasonably for consumer-conscious
purchasers. The author provides a rendition geared to practitioners. Much of the work is crafted for technical
analysis by professionals , as opposed to theoretical mathematics. For instance, the volume is useful to confirm
medical hypotheses within predefined confidence intervals.

Some reviewers have indicated that the later part of the text
is complicated. For instance, the t-distribution and estimation
techniques may require a simpler explanation. In college, I took
nine reasonably rigorous courses in higher mathematics.
During those courses, I found that the Schaum's Outlines were
good in the areas of calculus, differential equations,
linear algebra, probability and statistical inference. Each
outline provided nearly 1000 solved problems with both theory
and practice explained comprehensively. Students of the Rosner
text would be helped immensely by the Schaum's Outline Series.
This acquisition is still quite good for the price charged.

Dr. Rosner's book tends to be excessively wordy and somewhat of an enigma of explanations when a simple step by step explanation of multiple derivatives of the same calculation would be much more helpful to students. The book tends to give a perspective on one specific means of deriving a problem as an example, instead of issue multiple different avenues of problems involving the same equation. The upside to the issue is that the book does contain answers to many of the chapter questions (answers located in the back). (NOTE: Unfortunately, his book is of very little, if any, help if you are taking his class, so consider ordering an additional guide to help you through it.)

I'm currently an undergraduate student at Univ. South Florida majoring in social work (BSW). I am also doing a math minor because I plan on going on to graduate school in a dual program, social work (MSW) and public health-biostatistics (MSPH).

Having read through the first five chapters (can't put the book down), I found this textbook gives just enough information on the subject matter without going into math theory. Afterall, biostatistics is an applied field not theoretical.

This is a perfect textbook to get primed in the field of biostatistics. I cannot wait to finish this text and learn more theory and history of the many facets that biostatistics has to offer as it relates to the behavioral sciences.

The one drawback about the book is that it does not offer much on how to use a statistical analysis software package, rather it assumes knowledge in this area and just provides the data sets used in the book. A supplimental workbook for this text on the after mentioned topic would be wonderful.

I used the book for an introductory course at U. of Maryland and I found myself to come back to this book over again to review the materials and concept. As I go on to learn more about statistics used in data mining of genomic data or reading science papers regarding gene mapping stochastic methods, I find myself go back to this book for reference and review the concepts; sometimes going back reading the concept, I learn something new that I did not understand before. I also find the flow charts that specifies the conditions and assumptions in the book extremely helpful. Also, many comments that the author gives in data analysis are valuable.

Thus far this is the statistics book that I use for reference. I'm hoping that the author will write books in genomics or gene mapping.

I was assigned this text for my biostatistics class. Unfortunately, it is a poorly designed textbook, as everything is 'backwards'. Rosner gives examples before he introduces the material; he derives formulas before giving the real equation to use.
The only good thing about the text are the summaries included on the CD-rom. I have decided to read these instead of the actual text, because they are straightforward and leave out extraneous material.

People usually dislike textbooks. Textbooks tend to be voluminous and expansive on the simplest of topics.

Not so with this book. Even after 10 years, this textbook (much older edition) still is my handy reference. Certainly, this would be a starter text in statistics, but it covers the most essential and most frequently used facets of the topic very well. The examples and illustrations are very well presented and the concepts are lucidly explained.

Certainly a good addition to your library!

I was in a sense forced to purchase this text as it was the official text for my class. Unfortunately, if you are a researcher just trying to obtain a basic understanding of the field of statistics, this is not the book for you. There is very little that is understandable to a beginner or even to someone with some basic knowledge in the field. This book is purely meant for the statistican. Norman and Streiner's text on biostatistics and Andy Field's text on Statistics and SPSS are written in plain language. They are easy to understand and get the concepts across with only the bare minimum of formulas thrown around. This book's primary usefulness is its comprehensiveness, but that only goes so far when the text is just unintelligible to most of us mere mortals.

I too had to purchase this as the official text for my course. I found it very difficult to follow concepts in this book and I had just finished a college intro to statistics course. In the end, I had to rely completely on my professor's explanations.

The case studies are interesting and has a wealth of data sets. However for teaching the examples are poorly written, often convoluted and largely useless for learning. Often the text is along the lines of assume X = xxxx, Y = xxxx, thus the answer is . With little to no explanation short of the generic formula/law/axiom. As well as one, at best two, said examples.

Another flaw is the horrible lack of solutions to problems contained in the book. Only about a third of the end of chapter problems have a solution in the book/cd, and it is just the solution with zero info on how it is obtained.

Had to purchase this book because it is a reqired text for a course. the index of the book is totally inadequate and there is an index of applications by disease state which is totally useless and not by mathematical concepts- how bizaare is that! No index of formulae as any good mathematics or science book would have. If this book was written for medical students it explains why most medical literature has the statistics done by statisticians and not the medical profession This subject could be made so interesting and relevant and should transcend whatever your background is and whatever subject area you are talking about however the author is more interested in clinical disease states than teaching statistics and he claims the book is somehow superior because its not a cookbook. What is so wrong about dividing up a mathematical problem into logical steps, step one, step two step three etc etc The author has no concept of how the human mind understands and learns things. Since he probably has tenure, he doesn't have to. The book is boring, written in black and white and the print is too small with no color coding or highlighting. Starts chapter three Probability with a discussion of Breast Cancer. Typical egghead Harvard professor leaves out half of the answers in the answer key in the back of the book. Is he trying to punish those who are trying to learn the material.How about treating your audience like adults and provide all the answers in the answer key or is that another book we have to buy. No correlation to modern statistical software packages such as excel as well as a host of other packages available. No one does biostatistics without computers in this day and age. If I could have rated this book zero stars I would have done so.