bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Software for Sample Survey Data
Authors: Carlson Barbara Lepidus
Published: July 2005

In sample surveys, certain methods are used to improve the precision and control the costs of survey data collection. Among these methods are stratification, multistage sampling, clustering, and unequal probabilities of selection. These methods introduce a complexity to the analysis, which must be accounted for in order to produce unbiased estimates and their associated levels of precision. Not accounting for a complex sample design in the variance estimates can result in artificially small standard errors. This article provides a brief introduction to the impact these design complexities have on the sampling variance, and summarizes the characteristics and availability of software to carry out analysis on sample survey data while accounting for the design.
Software for Sample Survey Data, Misuse of Standard Packages
Authors: Brogan Donna
Published: July 2005

Many health science researchers conduct primary or secondary analyses with data from complex sample surveys but do not realize that specialized statistical software needs to be used. This article compares analyses of survey data conducted with survey software and with standard statistical software. The numerical example illustrates that the inappropriate use of standard statistical software for sample survey data can result in: (a) biased point estimates of population parameters, (b) underestimation of standard errors, (c) confidence intervals that are too wide, and (d) misleading tests of statistical significance. Weighted analyses with standard statistical software, with regular or normed weights, can yield correct point estimates of population parameters but still yield incorrect results for estimated standard errors and statistical tests. Data analysts are advised to use appropriate software for the analysis of survey data.
Systematic Sampling Methods
Authors: Bellhouse D. R.
Published: July 2005

Systematic sampling is a sampling technique that is used for its simplicity and convenience. At its simplest, a systematic sample is obtained by selecting a random start near the beginning of the population list and then taking every unit equally spaced thereafter. The technique can be generalized to include systematic sampling schemes with probability proportional to an auxiliary variable. In many situations, systematic sampling is statistically efficient when compared to other sampling schemes. This is especially true in populations with linear and quadratic trends and autocorrelated populations. For populations in random order systematic sampling, it is equivalent to simple random sampling. A major drawback to systematic sampling is that it does not admit an unbiased estimator of variance with respect to the sampling design. Variance estimation must rely on an assumed underlying structure in the population.
Treatment Delay
Authors: Armitage Peter
Published: July 2005

Delay in the reporting of symptoms or in the start of treatment for a life‐threatening illness may, paradoxically, be associated with increased survival. This is due to the confounding effect of severity of illness, the more rapidly developing forms of disease being associated both with shorter pretreatment intervals and with decreased survival. The point is illustrated by published data on breast cancer and tetanus.
A
merican Statistical Association
Authors: Bailar Barbara , Smith William B. , Kruse Megan R.
Published: July 2005

The American Statistical Association (ASA) membership includes government and industry statisticians, economists, psychologists, chemists, sociologists, as well as policy makers who have an interest in data. ASA has expanded its publications over the years to include eight professional journals, three magazines; the best known are
Journal of the American Statistical Association
and
The American Statistician
. Education efforts include education for nonstatisticians, with a special emphasis on teaching statistics in grade schools and high schools. The ASA holds several meetings a year, most prominently Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM). The ASA also sponsors several awards, including the Founders Award, and names Fellows.
B
artlett,
M
aurice
S
tevenson
Authors: Armitage Peter
Published: July 2005

M.S. Bartlett (1910–2002) was the leading figure amongst British statisticians starting their career in the 1930s, and was internationally recognized as a pioneer in statistical inference, stochastic processes, and other branches of statistical theory and methodology. In biostatistics, he contributed especially to the stochastic modeling of the transmission of infectious diseases.
Berkson,Joseph
Authors: O'Fallon W. Michael
Published: July 2005

Born in 1899 in Brooklyn, NY; died in 1982 in Rochester, MN. Developed Berkson's fallacy (or Berkson's bias) pointing out that studies of hospitalized patients have a likely selection bias that may invalidate results. Among other health problems, he applied his methods to links between smoking and lung cancer
Biometrical Journal
Authors: Läuter Jürgen , Glimm Ekkehard , Brunner Edgar , Schumacher Martin
Published: July 2005

The
Biometrical Journal
, formerly
Biometrische Zeitschrift
, is an international journal for mathematical and statistical methods used in the biological sciences. It is closely associated with the German and Austro‐Swiss Regions of the International Biometric Society.
Biostatistics
Authors: Diggle Peter J. , Zeger Scott L.
Published: July 2005

Biostatistics
, a journal established in 2000 by Oxford University Press, publishes papers that advance statistical reasoning and methods relevant to studies of human health and disease.
B
onferroni,
C
arlo
E
milio
Authors: Dewey Michael E.
Published: July 2005

Carlo Emilio Bonferroni studied for the degree of
laurea
in Torino (Turin) under Peano and Segre, became
incaricato
(assistant professor) at the Turin Polytechnic, and then in 1923, took up the chair of financial mathematics at the Economics Institute in Bari. In 1933, he transferred to Firenze (Florence) where he held his chair until his death.
B
radford
H
ill
L
ectures
Authors: Pocock Stuart J
Published: July 2005

The Bradford Hill Memorial Lecture series was established at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in memory of Sir Austin Bradford Hill, the distinguished medical statistician and epidemiologist. A short account of his achievements is followed by a list of the annual lecturers from 1992 onwards.
Clinical Trials, Early Cancer and Heart Disease
Authors: Schneiderman Marvin A. , Gehan Edmund A.
Published: July 2005

Early developments in controlled clinical trials at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) took place mainly at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and what was then the National Heart Institute (NHI) (subsequently the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI))beginning in the 1950s. This article reviews the developments from the early 1950s to the late 1960s at both institutes, summarizing the early efforts in clinical trials, the organizations set up to conduct and monitor the clinical trials, and the developments in statistical methodology that have formed the basis for conducting many of the present day randomized controlled trials. The early history of clinical trials at these institutes has been reviewed in more detail at NCI by Gehan & Schneiderman and at NHLBI by Halperin et al.
Cochrane Lectures
Authors: Chalmers Iain
Published: July 2005

The legacy of Archie Cochrane in epidemiology, clinical trials, social medicine, and health services research is marked by at least two series of annual lectures in the United Kingdom, “The Cochrane Lecture” initiated by the Society for Social Medicine and “The Cochrane ‘Effectiveness and Efficiency’ Anniversary Lecture”, at Green College, Oxford.
C
ochrane Collaboration
Authors: Clarke Mike
Published: July 2005

The Cochrane Collaboration is a large international organization engaged in the production and maintenance of systematic reviews of results of randomized controlled trials in all areas of health care. Reviewers are supported by 50 Cochrane Collaborative Review Groups based around the world. Reviews are published in
The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR)
, and various other publications provide a central register and database and a methodology register. Currently, over 4000 reviews have been undertaken, with results now available from 2000.
C
ochrane,
A
rchibald (‘
A
rchie’)
L
eman
Authors: Elwood P. , Hughes C.
Published: July 2005

Born in 1909 in Galashiels, UK; died in 1988 in Dorset, UK. Cochrane is best known for his dedication to improving epidemiological methodology, and for being instrumental in establishing the Cochrane Collaboration, which facilitates access to the results of health care interventions.
Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies (
COPSS
)
Authors: Keller‐McNulty Sallie , Huzurbazar Aparna V.
Published: July 2005

The Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies (COPSS) was established in 1963 to address common interests and concerns of North American Statistical Societies. The member societies are the American Statistical Association (ASA), the Eastern North American Region (ENAR) of the International Biometric Society (IBS), and the Institute for Mathematical Statistics (IMS), the Statistical Society of Canada, and the Western North American Region (WNAR) of the IBS. COPSS consists of the presidents, past presidents, and presidents‐elect of each member society plus a chair and a secretary/treasurer appointed by the committee. The COPSS committee provides a forum for member societies to discuss issues important to statistics.
Controlled Clinical Trials
Authors: Meinert Curtis L. , Tonascia Susan
Published: July 2005

Controlled Clinical Trialsis an international journal covering the design, methods, and operational aspects of clinical trials. The readership is drawn from medicine, biostatistics, epidemiology, computer science, management science, behavioral science, pharmaceutical science, and bioethics.
C
utler,
S
idney
J
oshua
Authors: Ederer Fred
Published: July 2005

Born in 1917 in Odessa, Russia; died in 1993 in Silver Spring, MD. Helped investigate the effects of environmental factors on cancer incidence, including breast cancer and lung cancer.
de
M
oivre,
A
braham
Authors: Armitage Peter
Published: July 2005

Abraham De Moivre is celebrated by statisticians primarily for his derivation of the normal approximation to the binomial distribution, and for providing the first tabulation of the normal integral (
see
Normal Distribution).
E
uropean
O
rganization for
R
esearch and
T
reatment of
C
ancer (
EORTC
)
Authors: Sylvester Richard
Published: July 2005

The EORTC Data Center provides statistical, data management, and medical support for the cancer clinical trials carried out by the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer. It organizes courses on clinical trial methodology and has developed an applied statistical research program dealing with problems faced in the day‐to‐day design and analysis of clinical trials.
Food and Drug Administration (
FDA
)
Authors: Ellenberg Susan
Published: July 2005

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is a regulatory agency of the United States federal government. This article describes the scope of work of each of the FDA's major components, and addresses the role of statisticians at FDA.
Framingham Study
Authors: Gordon Tavia , D'agostino Ralph B.
Published: July 2005

Initially, the Framingham Study was the Framingham Heart Study. The Framingham Study has grown dramatically over the years. In 1971, the Framingham Offspring Study began consisting of children of the original cohort and their spouses, 2489 males and 2646 females, with examinations conducted every four years. In 2002, a sample study of over 3500 third generation children and their spouses began. The Framingham Study is unique as a genetics study. Not only is there the risk factor collection (phenotypes), but there is also DNA and cell lines for many of the three cohorts (Original Cohort, Offspring Study, and Gen3 Study). The original study consisted mainly of whites of European extraction. A new substudy, the Omni Study, consisting on nonwhites is now an integral component of the study. Further, a number of ancillary studies evaluating stroke, dementia, arthritis, hearing, vision, sleep apnea, cancer, and nutrition are major components of the study. In addition to all the examination components of the original cohort, new technologies such as carotid ultrasound, heart and brain MRIs, and echocardiograms are part of the evaluations. Further, the study often leads the field in collecting new and novel risk factors such as homeostatic (clotting) factors including fibrinogen, inflammatory markers, and infection marker.
G
ardner,
M
artin
J
ohn
Authors: Barker David
Published: July 2005

Although Martin Gardner achieved fame for his work at Sellafield, which showed that paternal exposure to ionizing radiation was linked to leukemia in childhood, this discovery came toward the end of a varied and highly productive career in medical statistics. After receiving a first class degree in mathematics, he joined the Medical Research Council Social Medicine Unit at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. It was there that he became interested in the problem of why the rates of common diseases vary so much between different parts of Britain—an interest to which he returned repeatedly throughout his career. He carried out a series of novel analyses on the geographical links between socioeconomic conditions and coronary heart disease. Later, at the MRC Environmental Epidemiology Unit in Southampton, he produced two uniquely detailed atlases of mortality in England and Wales.
G
auss,
C
arl
F
riedrich
Authors: Armitage Peter
Published: July 2005

Gauss was one of the greatest scientists of all time, contributing to many branches of mathematics and the physical sciences. In statistics, he clarified the role of the normal distribution in the theory of least squares and showed that the method provides minimum mean square error linear estimates.
G
ini,
C
orrado
Authors: Armitage Peter
Published: July 2005

Gini was the leading Italian statistician in the first half of the twentieth century. He founded
Metron
and directed it throughout his life. He was influential in the development of mathematical approaches to descriptive statistics, using the mean difference between pairs of observations as a measure of variation, and relating this to the area of concentration for a distribution.
Gosset,WilliamSealy
Authors: Plackett Robin L.
Published: July 2005

Gosset (1876–1937) was an industrial chemist, working throughout his career for the firm of brewers, Arthur Guinness, in Dublin. Becoming interested in the statistical analysis of experimental data, he studied under Karl Pearson and discovered thetdistribution. He published under the pseudonym of “Student” and made several other contributions to statistical theory and practice, including experimental design on which he corresponded extensively with R.A. Fisher.
Graunt,John
Authors: Sutherland I.
Published: July 2005

Graunt's (1662)Observations on the Bills of Mortalityis reviewed. They represent the beginnings of the disciplines of demography and epidemiology and include the first attempt to construct a life table.
G
reenwood,
M
ajor
Authors: Wilkinson Lise
Published: July 2005

Major Greenwood is known principally for the important role he played in the development of biostatistics during the first half of the twentieth century, both as an epidemiologist and as a pioneer medical statistician. Having qualified in medicine in 1904, he turned to medical research rather than practice, influenced by the work of the physiologist (Sir) Leonard Hill and by Karl Pearson's teaching of biological statistics at University College London. From then on, he developed the methodology of medical statistics to make it ultimately acceptable to an initially reluctant medical profession, adding good clinical judgment to Pearson's rigorous mathematics. A few weeks before his sudden death in London during a meeting on cancer research, he argued the case for the Voluntary Euthanasia Society in a debate broadcast by the BBC.
Halperin,Max
Authors: Greenhouse Samuel W.
Published: July 2005

Apart from two periods working in the private sector, Halperin (1917–1988) had a career at the National Institutes of Health and later at George Washington University. He contributed to a wide range of statistical theory, including multivariate analysis, regression, interval estimation, distribution‐free tests, and multiple comparisons. He helped to lay the foundations of multicenter clinical trials, writing on planning, data and safety monitoring, and stochastic curtailment.
International Agency for Research Against Cancer (IARC)
Authors: Esteve Jaques , Altman Douglas G.
Published: July 2005

The IARC was founded in 1965 as an extension of the World Health Organization, and is located in Lyon, France. It is concerned with the identification of causes of cancer, primarily through epidemiologic studies. The IARC publishes several serial and nonserial publications, including volumes on the methodology of epidemiologic studies and tumor incidence experiments.
International Society for Clinical Biostatistics (
ISCB
)
Authors: Valsecchi Maria Grazia
Published: July 2005

The International Society for Clinical Biostatistics (ISCB) was founded in May 1979 with the aim of stimulating research into the principles and methodology used in the design and analysis of clinical research, to increase the relevance of statistical theory to clinical practice, and to further the communication between statisticians and clinicians. The Society also has the policy to work with other societies and organizations in the advancement of biostatistics and to provide a common forum for clinicians and statisticians through meetings, seminars, and publications.
InternationalStatisticalInstitute (ISI)
Authors: Kenessey Z.
Published: July 2005

The International Statistical Institute (ISI) was established in 1885 in London. In the nineteenth century, the promotion of standardization of statistical methodology in the official statistics of countries was a key task. ISI is considered today the world academy of statisticians, with present‐day ISI activities grouped into five areas: (i) conference services, (ii) publications, (iii) research activities, (iv) membership services, and (v) other functions. At the beginning of 2004, ISI had 1884 elected members, distinguished statisticians active in academia, government, and the private sector of about 130 countries.
Jeffreys, Harold
Authors: Lindley Dennis V.
Published: July 2005

Harold Jeffreys (1891–1989) spent all his adult life in Cambridge, part of it as Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy, and is best known as a geophysicist. His interest in the analysis of data led to his development of a statistical method, now called Bayesian, based on the calculus of probability. He viewed probability as measure, common to all rational persons, unlike the subjective view. In the development of this attitude, he introduced the concept of invariance.
Journal of Clinical Epidemiology
Authors: Feinstein Alvan R.
Published: July 2005

Previously the
Journal of Chronic Diseases
, the
Journal of Clinical Epidemiology
(since 1988) covers the interplay of clinical medicine, epidemiology, biostatistics, and pharmacoepidemiology. The focus of articles is on methodology, clinical research, or both. A special section, Pharmacoepidemiology Reports, rapidly publishes articles on the clinical epidemiologic investigation of pharmaceutical agents. The journal is published monthly.
Journal of The
A
merican Statistical Association
Authors: Billard Lynne
Published: July 2005

The JASA was started in 1922, arising out of the old New Series publications of the American Statistical Association. Initially not concerned with statistical methodology
per
se, there is now a Theory & Methods section to complement the Applications & Case Studies section, along with review articles and book reviews. In substance, the JASA is dominated by theoretical mathematically‐based statistical methodology, although its authors continue to be motivated by real world problems. Articles are for the most part unsolicited, and the Journal appears quarterly.
Journal of the
R
oyal
S
tatistical
S
ociety
Authors: Owen M. C.
Published: July 2005

The
Journal of the Statistical Society of London
, launched in 1838, changed to the
Journal of the Royal Statistical Society
in 1887. During the nineteenth century it was concerned primarily with statistical aspects of social issues, but during the early twentieth century, the theoretical and methodological aspects of statistics were more widely represented. A
Supplement
appeared in 1934, and the two series were renamed
Series A
and
B
in 1948. Later changes included the launching of
Applied Statistics
in 1952, to become
Series C
in 1964, and the addition of
The Statistician
as
Series D
in 1993. From 2004 there are three Series:
A
(
Statistics in Society
),
B
(
Statistical Methodology
) and
C
(
Applied Statistics
), and a new quarterly magazine,
Significance
. Recent developments in electronic submission and publishing are described.
L
inder,
F
orrest
E
.
Authors: Israel Robert A.
Published: July 2005

Linder (1906–1988) was a leading figure in the world of vital and health statistics. He worked for the US Bureau of the Census, and after some years with the United Nations, he returned to the US civil service as director of the National Health Survey, and in 1960, as director of the newly formed National Center for Health Statistics. He followed with a post at the University of North Carolina and served on many international committees. His publications cover a wide range of topics in demography and health.
Mainland,Donald
Authors: Altman Douglas G.
Published: July 2005

Donald Mainland (1902–1985) graduated in medicine and in 1930, he became Professor of Anatomy at Dalhousie University, Canada. He published his first book on medical statistics in 1938 and his second in 1950, shortly after moving to New York University as a medical statistician. He wrote a long and notable series of commentaries on medical statistics, distributed privately or published inClinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics.
M
antel,
N
athan
Authors: Hale Lauren , Hale Benjamin
Published: July 2005

Nathan Mantel (1919–2002) was most noted for his contribution to the Mantel–Haenszel procedure and its extensions, which allows for combining data from different sources, and so can be used in a variety of contexts: retrospective studies, prospective studies, and laboratory experiments, including those with litter‐matched samples. The technique was also used to develop the logrank test.
Medical Research Council Streptomycin Trial
Authors: Sutherland I.
Published: July 2005

This is an outstanding early example of a rigorously planned clinical trial with concurrent controls. Only a limited supply of the drug was available. Patients with acute bilateral pulmonary tuberculosis were allocated by a random process to treatment either with bed rest alone or to streptomycin plus bed rest, and precautions were taken to avoid bias in their management and assessment. The streptomycin patients showed early radiologic improvement compared with the controls, but resistant strains of the bacilli emerged rapidly and there was much vestibular toxicity.

The trial provided an explicit model for subsequent tuberculosis research and, more importantly, served as a catalyst for the scientific investigation of other treatments and interventions throughout clinical and preventive medicine. The introduction in this trial of an allocation scheme based on random sequences represents the most important single advance in the evolution of the clinical trial in the twentieth century.
M
oran,
P
atrick
A
lfred
P
ierce
Authors: Wilson Susan R.
Published: July 2005

Pat Moran was an Australian statistical scientist with an enormous breadth and depth to his research interests. During his prolific career, Moran made substantial contributions to population genetics, medical statistics (particularly psychiatry), geometric probability, mathematical statistics, time series, and applied probability. He received numerous scientific honors, and now is commemorated by two Australian awards for young research statisticians.
National Institutes of Health (
NIH
)
Authors: Ellenberg Jonas H. , Dixon Dennis O.
Published: July 2005

The United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) has contributed in several ways to the development of biostatistics as a discipline. From its establishment soon after World War II, NIH leaders recognized the contributions that biostatisticians would make in fulfilling its research mission. NIH biostatisticians, some in positions of leadership beyond biostatistics, have influenced theoretical developments and applications for more than 50 years. NIH funds have supported development of methods at many universities, as well as graduated training of many of those currently working at universities, companies, and government agencies.
Nightingale, Florence
Authors: Crichton Nicola J.
Published: July 2005

Although famous for her pioneer work in nursing, Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) was deeply interested in the presentation and improvement of statistical information. She worked with Farr in the development of uniform systems for hospital statistics, including disease classification.
Office for National Statistics (
ONS
) (Formerly
OPCS
)
Authors: Fox John , Dunnell Karen , Coleman Michael
Published: July 2005

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) lies at the center of the United Kingdom Government Statistical Service. In partnership with other government departments, ONS aims to provide “the main statistical advisory service for policy formulation, resource allocation, planning, and research on the number, characteristics and health of the population. It collects and analyses data from a wide variety of sources, and publishes and interprets the statistics. Major customers are government, business, researchers and the general public.”
P
ascal,
B
laise
Authors: Edwards A. W. F.
Published: July 2005

Born 1623; died 1662. Pascal's seminal work laid the foundations for the theory of probability. He introduced the idea of expectation. He also introduced the binomial distribution for equal chances, and with its help solved the problem of points for two players.
P
earl,
R
aymond
Authors: Dixon Dennis O.
Published: July 2005

Raymond Pearl (1879–1940) worked in Michigan as a biologist until 1905. After a year's study in London with Karl Pearson, he returned to the US and increasingly worked in areas of human biology. In 1918, he became the first Professor of Biometry and Vital Statistics in the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, Baltimore, and started a prolific period of research in a wide range of human biology, including public health, eugenics and heredity. A major line of research was human population growth.
Pearson,Karl
Authors: Magnello M. E.
Published: July 2005

Karl Pearson (1857–1936) was the founder of biometrics andBiometrikaand a principal architect of the mathematical theory of statistics. He was a polymath, with a wide interest in intellectual and social pursuits, and first taught applied mathematics at University College London. He started to teach statistics and to develop new methods during the 1890s. He developed measures of correlation and discovered the chi‐ square distribution and used it for tests of goodness of fit and association in contingency tables. He established and ran four laboratories and established the first degree course in mathematical statistics in Britain. He worked closely with Galton and Weldon, and eugenics and heredity remained central interests throughout his life.
P
etty,
W
illiam
Authors: Armitage Peter
Published: July 2005

A man of many accomplishments, including professorships in Anatomy and Music in Oxford, Petty was influential in the founding of the Royal Society and advocated the setting up of a national statistical office to conduct censuses, organize tax collection, and improve public health. He organized the complete mapping of Ireland. He was a friend of John Graunt, wrote on vital statistics and demography, and invented the term “political arithmetic”.
Salk Vaccine
Authors: Meier Paul , Smith Rebecca Pringle
Published: July 2005

The Salk vaccine was a killed‐virus vaccine against poliomyelitis, an uncommon but dangerous disease during the early twentieth century. In 1954, over one million children in the United States took part in a study of the effectiveness of the vaccine. Over 700 000 entered a randomized double‐blind study. Over a million were in a study in which second‐grade children were offered the vaccine and first‐ and third‐ grade children were observed as controls. In both forms of study, the incidence was reduced by about half in the groups that received the vaccine. The problems of design, execution, and interpretation are described in some detail.
Schneiderman, Marvin Arthur
Authors: Levin David L.
Published: July 2005

M.A. Schneiderman (1918–1997) was a statistician and scientific administrator at the US National Cancer Institute from 1948 to 1980. His research covered topics in dose–response curve analysis, clinical trials in cancer, multistage biological screening programs, and sequential methods. After 1980, he was actively engaged in the monitoring and development of legislation for environmental and toxicologic issues.
S
mith,
C
edric
A
usten
B
ardell
Authors: Armitage Peter
Published: July 2005

C.A.B. Smith (1917–2002) was a leading exponent in the United Kingdom of the application of statistics to human genetics, working at the Galton Laboratory, University College London. His principal work was in the detection and measurement of human linkage, and he was an influential exponent of likelihood and Bayesian methods.
Smoking and Health
Authors: Holland W. W.
Published: July 2005

Increasing rates of incidence and mortality from lung cancer were noted in the 1930s and smoking was one of a number of suggested causes. Various workers in 1950 published persuasive confirmation from case–control studies, which showed a large relative risk for cigarette smokers, increasing with amount smoked. Prospective cohort studies provided further confirmation and showed that other causes of death are involved. The effect of passive smoking is discussed. Although smoking has been reduced in developing countries, concern exists about the lesser degree of reduction by women or by poorer people, and about the targeting of developing countries in tobacco promotion.
S
nedecor,
G
eorge
W
addel
Authors: Cox D. F.
Published: July 2005

G.W. Snedecor (1881–1974) worked at Iowa State University from 1913 to 1958, directing the new Statistical Laboratory from 1933 to 1947. He introduced a course in statistics in 1915 and, with H.A. Wallace, wrote a book on correlation and machine calculation in 1925. He promoted the methods of R.A. Fisher and in 1937 wrote his influential book on statistical methods, the fifth and subsequent editions of which were coauthored with W.G. Cochran.
S
oper,
H
erbert
E
dward
Authors: Armitage Peter
Published: July 2005

Soper published early papers on the distribution of the correlation coefficient, but is best known for his book describing the use of probability generating functions and his later work on the epidemiology of measles.
S
piegelman,
M
ortimer
Authors: Pollack Earl
Published: July 2005

Mortimer Spiegelman was an important contributor to biostatistics, particularly in the areas of
demography
and public health. His major contribution to the field of public health and epidemiology came toward the end of his career when he conceived of, coordinated, edited, and carried to a successful conclusion the publication of a series of monographs sponsored by the
American Public Health Association
(APHA) and published by the Harvard University Press. Each monograph pertained to a specific set of diseases in which the 1960
Census
was used in a standard way as the denominator for
rates
of disease. In his role as editor of this series, he used his considerable powers of persuasion with the authors of the monographs to ensure comparability among them and to make certain that the work on each was completed. Sixteen monographs resulted from this effort, covering a wide range of topics.
Statistical Consulting
Authors: Stinnett Sandra S. , Derr Janice A. , Gehan Edmund A.
Published: July 2005

The provision of advice and/or services in the application of statistical methods may be quite brief or may constitute full collaboration of the statistician as an investigator. The role of the biostatistician is discussed in the separate contexts of a medical school, a pharmaceutical company, a dental school, a government agency, and an academic department. Attention is drawn to the characteristics of a successful consultant, the challenges of consulting, especially with physicians, and the role of a consultant as ambassador and teacher.
Teaching Medical Statistics to Statisticians
Authors: Newell David , Simpson Judy
Published: July 2005

Biostatistics teaching to statisticians is mainly through graduate and continuing education courses. An important component is exposure to consulting and collaborative research done by teachers. Three aspects of the subject that need emphasis are ethical issues, the consequences of human fallibility (e.g. in diagnostic errors), and problems of causation. Considerations arising in observational studies and randomized trials are discussed, as are more general issues about the course format.
T
hiele,
T
horvald
N
icolai
Authors: Keiding Niels
Published: July 2005

A brief account is given of statistical contributions of the Danish astronomer and actuary T.N. Thiele (1838–1910).
Tukey,JohnWilder
Authors: Kafadar Karen
Published: July 2005

John Tukey (1915–2000), is best known to statisticians for founding the field of exploratory data analysis, for introducing the jackknife as a tool for characterizing the uncertainty in a statistic, and for guiding and contributing to research in robust methods. His work in other fields included Tukey's lemma; fast fourier transform; and coining the word “bit” for computer science.
W
ald,
A
braham
Authors: Chernoff H.
Published: July 2005

Wald (1902–1950) was born in Rumania and emigrated to the United States in 1938. From 1938, he worked at Columbia University. In 1939, he published the first account of statistical decision theory, and in 1943, he developed the probability ratio test, the essential feature of sequential analysis. He often used Bayesian arguments to derive frequentist results. He worked on a wide range of topics in mathematical statistics and econometrics.
Y
ule,
G
eorge
U
dny
Authors: Edwards A. W. F.
Published: July 2005

G.U. Yule (1871–1951) worked from 1892 at University College London under Karl Pearson, and from 1912 to 1931 at Cambridge. He published
An Introduction to the Theory of Statistics
in 1911, the 11th and subsequent editions of which were coauthored by M.G. Kendall. He contributed to the theory of regression, correlation, genetics, epidemiology, and time series, and developed a coefficient of association for 2 × 2 tables. He described what is now usually known as Simpson's paradox for association in a 2 × 2 × 2 tables. He introduced the simple birth process in the study of evolution.
F
leiss,
J
oseph
L
.
Authors: Shrout Patrick E. , Begg Melissa D.
Published: July 2005

Joseph L. Fleiss was a biostatistician who made important contributions to the analysis of diagnostic reliability, clinical trials, and categorical data. He was born on November 13, 1937, in Brooklyn, New York, and he died on June 12, 2003, in Ridgewood, New Jersey. This encyclopedia entry describes his impact on research in psychiatry, dentistry, and cardiology and traces his career as a researcher, professor, and department chair at Columbia University in New York City. It highlights Fleiss's impact on clinical trials and as an author of more than 200 scientific papers and of accessible biostatistics texts on rates and proportions, and on clinical trials.
Clinical Trials
Authors: Goodman Steven N.
Published: July 2005

Clinical Trials: Journal of the Society for Clinical Trials
is a peer‐reviewed, bimonthly journal, initiated in 2004, as the official journal of the Society for Clinical Trials (SCT), succeeding
Controlled Clinical Trials
. As with its predecessor, it is an interdisciplinary journal whose primary focus is clinical trial‐related statistical methodology, but which also covers a broad range of methods and issues from other domains that relate to clinical trials. Its current structure, procedures, and focus are described.
Barnard,GeorgeAlfred
Authors: Lindley Dennis V.
Published: July 2005

G.A. Barnard (1915–2002) was a prominent British statistician, holding professorships at Imperial College London and the University of Essex. He was a strong proponent of the use of likelihood as a central feature of statistical inference, leading to the likelihood principle, and stressed the importance of conjugate distributions in Bayesian theory. Another interest was industrial inspection and quality control.
Analytic Hierarchy Process
Authors: Saaty Thomas L.
Published: July 2005

The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a theory of relative measurement of intangible criteria. With this approach to relative measurement, a scale of priorities is derived from pairwise comparison measurements only after the elements to be measured are known. The ability to do pairwise comparisons is our biological heritage and we need it to cope with a world where everything is relative and constantly changing and thus, there are no fixed standards to measure things on. In traditional measurement, one has a scale that one applies to measure any element that comes along that has the property the scale is for, and the elements are measured one by one, not by comparing them with each other. In the AHP, paired comparisons are made with judgments using numerical values taken from the AHP absolute fundamental scale of 1 to 9. A scale of relative values is derived from all these paired comparisons and it also belongs to an absolute scale that is invariant under the identity transformation like the system of real numbers. The AHP is useful for making multicriteria decisions involving benefits, opportunities, costs, and risks. The ideas are developed in stages and illustrated with examples of real‐life decisions. The subject is transparent and easy to understand why it is done the way it is along the lines discussed here. The AHP has a generalization to dependence and feedback; the Analytic Network Process (ANP) is not discussed here.
B
ayesian Decision Models in Health Care
Authors: Alemi F.
Published: July 2005

The paper discusses how probability of rare events, for example, breach of patients' privacy, can be assessed from clues in the environment using Bayesian probability models. The paper shows how likelihood ratios associated with various clues in the environment could be assessed from interviews with panels of experts.
Health Care Utilization and Behavior, Models of
Authors: Aday Lu Ann , Andersen Ronald M.
Published: July 2005

Models of health care utilization provide guidance for defining variables, specifying the relationships between them, and evaluating programs and policies concerned with access to and utilization of health care services. This chapter reviews four major types of utilization models: (a) models of patient decision making, grounded in sociological theory and research; (b) the health belief model, based in psychological theory; (c) economic models of the demand for medical care; and (d) the behavioral model of health services utilization that has guided much health services research on access to and utilization of health care services.
Health Care Utilization Data
Authors: Ash Arlene S.
Published: July 2005

Many important questions about the fairness, efficacy, or efficiency of health care delivery systems require utilization data. Ideally, we would like to have information on the nature, timing, cost, and setting of each person's utilization, and the ability to link that information with personal demographics, health‐status characteristics, and health outcomes, including declines in functional status and death. We discuss the major sources of health care utilization data in the United States and the characteristics that make them more or less useful for health services research.
Health Economics
Authors: Conrad Douglas A. , Sullivan Sean D.
Published: July 2005

This chapter examines the major research questions facing health economics today and describes the larger context for those questions in terms of allocative efficiency and technical efficiency. The theory underlying various decision‐making algorithms is also elucidated–cost–effectiveness, cost–benefit, and cost–utility analyses being the most prominent examples. The Pareto‐efficiency criterion is explicated, and the underlying assumptions of the different algorithms are presented. The chapter concludes with examples of the application of various decision rules and develops the concepts of risk, return, and the time value of resources devoted to health investments.
Health Services Research, Overview
Authors: Lohr Kathleen N.
Published: July 2005

Health services research studies how social factors, financing systems, organizational structures and processes, technology, and personal behaviors affect access to health care, the costs and quality of health care, and the health and well‐being of individuals and populations. HSR, a boundary‐crossing field, engages a very wide set of clinical and academic disciplines, investigates a broad array of questions relating to health care delivery and management, financing, clinical practice, personal health care decision‐making, and health policy, and employs virtually all quantitative and qualitative methods found in the social sciences, economics, outcomes measurement, management and administration, epidemiology and statistics, law, and policy analysis. It has one major professional organization, Academy Health, and is supported in the US in large measure by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, certain other federal agencies, and philanthropic organizations; numerous journals exclusively or predominantly publish on HSR‐related topics.
Health Status Instruments, Measurement Properties of
Authors: SchÜnemann Holger , Juniper Elizabeth , Guyatt Gordon
Published: July 2005

In this article, we present the key measurement properties necessary for a useful health status instrument. These instruments can measure health status at a moment in time to differentiate between individuals (discriminative instruments) or they can measure change over time (evaluative instruments). We describe how investigators establish validity, responsiveness, and interpretability of a health status measure. Furthermore, we describe advantages and disadvantages of various administration methods for health status measures.
Medicare Data
Authors: Ash Arlene S. , Virnig Beth
Published: July 2005

Medicare is a federal health insurance program for nearly all Americans aged 65 and over, for younger persons entitled to Social Security disability payments for at least 2 years, and for people with end‐stage renal disease (ESRD). It is administered by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS, formerly the Health Care Financing Administration, HCFA) in the US Department of Health and Human Services. In 2003, persons with entitlement due to these mandates numbered approximately 34.7 million, 5.8 million, and 300 000 respectively. Medicare data, especially the program's extensive repository of enrollment and administrative claims information, is a unique resource for health service research, due to the program's size, national representativeness, continuity of enrollment, presence of race and date‐of‐death data, well‐documented history of use in research, and the help available for researchers wishing to use the data for studies of potential benefit to Medicare beneficiaries.
Operations Research
Authors: Steinwachs Donald
Published: July 2005

Operations Research (OR) uses quantitative methods to support decision‐making. OR methods have been used in health service delivery to improve efficiency and effectiveness. OR methods are designed to support a decision‐maker seeking to optimize the achievement of explicit goals within available resources and other constraints present. The range of OR decision tools is described and how they can be applied to different types of management and clinical decisions.
Outcomes Research
Authors: Lipscomb Joseph
Published: July 2005

Outcomes research is a multidisciplinary field of study to understand and improve the end results of healthcare. These end results may include survival, health‐related quality of life, satisfaction with care, economic impact, and other outcomes important to a range of decision makers: patients, individuals at risk to disease, providers, public and private payers, regulators, and standards‐setting organizations. Outcomes research is substantially focused on assessing and enhancing the quality of health care. This requires continuing efforts to develop and apply valid, reliable, feasible, and appropriately responsive outcome measures; to evaluate the impact of interventions on these outcomes; and to translate findings into information useful to decision makers.
Quality of Care
Authors: Normand Sharon‐Lise T.
Published: July 2005

Quality of care refers to the attributes or characteristics of the delivery and subsequent outcomes of mental and physical health care. Data are collected to assess quality in order to improve care, to provide accountability, and to quantify information for market choices. Analyses of health data, however, are challenging due to their nonexperimental nature and complex structure. These characteristics lead to potential problems with confounding when identifying factors that impact quality, with nonindependence of outcomes associated with individuals treated within health care units, as well as with clustering due to multiple mixed outcomes.
Quality of Life and Health Status
Authors: Patrick Donald L.
Published: July 2005

Clinical studies, epidemiological investigations, population surveys, and clinical practices increasingly incorporate self‐reported measures of health status and quality of life. These help to determine whether treatments are doing more good than harm, whether health and quality are improving or worsening, and to see if health status differs between groups. Self‐reported outcomes are often compared to clinical or performance‐based measurements that remain the primary endpoints for most clinical trials and are important markers of disease, injury, and their trajectories. Self‐reported measures of health and quality of life, however, often have more meaning to the persons affected by disease or treatment. Because perceptions of health and illness influence what people do about their health (e.g. visit doctors, go to hospital, or ignore signs and symptoms), policy makers are also increasingly interested in self‐reported outcomes.
Operations Research, Simulation
Authors: Sharkey Phoebe D.
Published: July 2005

Simulation models have been indispensable tools for decision makers in many different public and private environments. The methodology of developing a simulation model involves the abstraction of a real‐life system into a symbolic model format. To discuss the multiple stages required in a Monte Carlo simulation study, including the (1) Problem Statement; (2) Information Gathering and Data Preparation; (3) Model Conceptualization; (4) Model Implementation; (5) Analysis and Interpretation; (6) Verification and Validation; and (7) Implementation and Documentation. Simulation models are created in order to provide valuable insight to decision makers by replicating real‐life decision scenarios and providing more complete information about the risks and uncertainties in those environments. Once a model has been verified and validated as accurately representing the real‐world environment, many “what if ” questions about the system can be posed. Illustrative examples are presented.