Biostatistics for Epidemiology and Public Health Using R

The purpose of this book is to make R readily accessible, on a hands-on level, to all future epidemiologists for research, data processing, and presentation. The book is essentially about learning R with an emphasis on applications to epidemiology, public health, and preventive medicine. The book is systematically organized into seven chapters, each with a number of main sections covering the spectrum of applicable R codes for biostatistical applications in epidemiology and public health. It first introduces interactional relationships among medicine, preventive medicine, public health, epidemiology, and biostatistics in general, as well as special concepts that have been (and are being) developed to address quantitative problems in epidemiology and public health in particular. A review of the basic elements in the theory of probability is presented to introduce or reinforce readers’ ability to handle this important basic concept. Then, the book covers simple data handling using R programming and presents the graphics capabilities available in R. Following these initial forays into R, the book gives an overview of the theory of probability and mathematical statistics, which is necessary because both of these areas have become integral parts of biostatistical applications in epidemiology. Finally, the book shows how R may be effectively used to handle classical problems in case-control studies and cohort investigations in epidemiology. Similarly, survival analysis, the backbone of much epidemiologic research, finds excellent support in the R environment.