Product Description

This book contains the content of the ActivEpi CD-ROM pages plus additional exercises and an appendix on computer packages.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #553725 in Books
• Published on: 2005-04-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 500 pages

Review
From the reviews: "ActivEpi is the best self-learning programme in epidemiology I have seen. The CD-ROM introduces the topics through educational and very short lectures. Throughout the book there are plenty of exercises, questions, and answers. It is all very well done and it covers a curriculum suitable for a pregraduate course inepidemiology for, say, medical students."--Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Volume 167 Issue 3 Page 571 - August 2004 "...The accompanying text closely follows the CD but has all the advantages of a book (easy to find specific sections, no computer is needed to read it, etc.) I therefore recommend that students buy both the book and the CD." --The American Statistican, November 2004, Vol. 58, No. 4 "This text is on epidemiology and is the companion book for the CD-ROM … . They complement each other and are designed to be used together, the book works as a hard copy of the CD. The material covered is the usually presented one in introductory courses in epidemiology. The interaction with the CD-ROM makes this a very user-friendly way to learn the concepts. … but the book can be used by itself as the basis for a basic course in epidemiology." (Hector de Arazoza, Zentralblatt MATH, Issue 1016, 2003) "The ActivEpi CD-ROM together with the Companion Textbook have been designed for self-study or for a course in the concepts of epidemiology. … ActivEpi addresses every issue through a practical example. In addition, the CD media enables this aspect to be exploited to the full … . the thoroughness of the coverage and the many interesting practical examples, together with an attractive use of animation and audio, provide a very useful addition to the teaching material that is currently available." (Lesley Rushton, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Vol. 157 (3), 2004)

Customer Reviews

A First Edition Text in Need of Revision
The ActiveEpi Companion Text is a companion to the ActiveEpi CD-ROM. Although marketed as both a "general reference" and "self-contained" textbook, it is neither. Many epidemiologic concepts are discussed with insufficient depth and important shades of grey are not called to the reader's attention. The ActiveEpi Text also falls short as a companion for the CD. It contains some of the busiest and most unappealing graphics I've ever seen: 1). Black and white text with low resolution figures and diagrams in various shades of gray; 2). Excessive underlining, italicizing and bolding; 3). More than a half dozen fonts on most pages; and 4). Lines of text closely crammed together with numerous boxes of every size and shape on many pages. The text also has quite a few typos and grammatical errors. Just a few examples from the first chapter include "elements of each area respond to a single mouse clicks" (p. 3), "it would be worthwhile to review the them one more time" (p. 8), and "the Homerwork and Projects for each lesson" (p. 12).

One of the worst attempts at teaching epi
It seems that the authors were more interested in using every possible font symbol available than actually presenting epi concepts in a concise and understandable format. Here are a list of difficulties with this book:
(1) There are numerous typos.
(2) Answers to in chapter questions are poorly explained, if explained at all (one recently discovered answer was "you should have the hang of this by now").
(3) Graphics are low resolution and poorly designed.
(4) Lacking color illustrations.
(5) Formulae are given in cryptic and assorted symbols with no consistency (ie E' and not E are designated as different); often lacking adequate explanations.
(6) Does not use mainstream terms and formulas; in fact, some terms do not yield results on google and cannot be found in other epi texts.
(7) Has flipped the traditionally accepted 2 x 2 table, making formula conversion quite a hassle.
(8) Lack of appropriate definitions of terms (terms often described by an example instead of being defined).
(9) No glossary.

I have great sympathy for those who have this text as their introduction into epi as this book has taken fairly easy and readily accepted epi concepts and butchered them into a mass of cryptic and distressing formulae. For those who have already had experience with epi, it is quite painful to spend valuable learning time to convert all of the traditionally accepted formulae already learned into something that likens what is mentioned in the text. Under no circumstances would I recommend this book.

Surprisingly Effective Spoon Feeding
While this book and companion CD can seem a bit silly at first, they are worth doing. The material sticks with you, and the concepts are clearly and well explained. Even difficult concepts (ie. the difference between confounding and interaction) are handled well. It was some spoonfeeding, but the material has stuck with me in more advanced courses - I keep going back to this as a starting point.