Risk, Chance, and Causation [Kindle Edition]
Author: Michael B. Bracken | Language: English | ISBN: B00D6II30M | Format: PDF, EPUB
Risk, Chance, and Causation
Download electronic versions of selected books Risk, Chance, and Causation for everyone book 4shared, mediafire, hotfile, and mirror link
Download electronic versions of selected books Risk, Chance, and Causation for everyone book 4shared, mediafire, hotfile, and mirror link
The press and other media constantly report news stories about dangerous chemicals in the environment, miracle cures, the safety of therapeutic treatments, and potential cancer-causing agents. But what exactly is actually meant by “increased risk”—should we worry if we are told that we are at twice the risk of developing an illness? And how do we interpret “reduced risk” to properly assess the benefits of noisily touted dietary supplements?
Demonstrating the difficulty of separating the hype from the hypothesis, noted epidemiologist Michael Bracken clearly communicates how clinical epidemiology works. Using everyday terms, Bracken describes how professional scientists approach questions of disease causation and therapeutic efficacy to provide readers with the tools to help them understand whether warnings of environmental risk are truly warranted, or if claims of therapeutic benefit are justified.
Books with free ebook downloads available Risk, Chance, and Causation - File Size: 7319 KB
- Print Length: 344 pages
- Publisher: Yale University Press; 1 edition (June 1, 2013)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00D6II30M
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #261,652 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #44 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Professional & Technical > Medical eBooks > Internal Medicine > Infectious Disease > Epidemiology
- #59 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Professional & Technical > Medical eBooks > Physician & Patient > Diagnosis
Hardly a week passes, it seems, without a news report touting the latest research linking some (food, vitamin, mineral, lifestyle factor) to your health (or its opposite). Typically, such reports take the form of "Consuming (Doing) `X' reduces (increases) risk of (cancer, heart disease, premature death) by "Y"%.
Well, in the interest of seeing where I stand, health-wise, I've been keeping track of these reports (and those percentages) for some time. By simple addition, I figure I have about a 137% chance of dying before any age-and-gender peer who: last consumed saturated fat at his mother's breast, avoids red meat and grilled bratwurst like the plague, has never smoked, exercises 30 minutes each day, never met a veggie he didn't like, consumes whole grains at every meal, gets a solid eight hours of sleep each night, and has a single glass of (red) wine every so often.
OK, just kidding. That's not the way it works. But those reports are scary or--worse--contradictory. Today's health fact is tomorrow's artifact. Who--and what--can you believe? After a while, it almost seems best to ignore any such reports as essentially useless, the results of what has come to be called "junk science" (by, for example, Steven Milloy, in his book, Junk Science Judo: Self-Defense Against Health Scares & Scams).
Question: Who are the scientists, and science, behind this endless stream of ever-changing health news? Answer: Epidemiologists, and Epidemiology. Epidemiology is defined as `the branch of medicine that deals with the incidence, distribution, and possible control of diseases and other factors relating to health," according to my trusty Google search.
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