Risk Assessment: Theory, Methods, and Applications

well as non-statisticians.In this book, Stephen Senn explored the critical role of statistics in making decisions related to medical care, such as resource allocation, drug licensing, and causality in disease in a stimulating way without using any formula, equations, or statistical jargon, which usually non-statisticians do not like.Sharing the stories, paradoxes, and puzzles to the readers, he covered important topics such as clinical trials, life tables, vaccines, smoking and lung cancer, and even the effectiveness of prayer.Given the prominence of medical statistics and public health data during the COVID-19 pandemic, understanding statistical concepts is crucial for interpreting and applying this information.But many people do not have a statistical background.Senn's second edition of the book, which is equally interesting as the first edition, provides a comprehensive and updated overview of medical statistics and their relevance to rational decision-making in an unambiguous and easily understandable language.The second edition has been updated to cover the developments in the last two decades.It includes new material on the challenges of COVID-19 and infectious disease modelling.While statistical methods have been contentious in the past, Senn presents an engaging and insightful account of the importance of statistics in medical care.Just to make it interesting, Senn has told interesting stories about famous statisticians like Karl Pearson, Thomas Bayes, Ronald Fisher and Francis Galton, etc.There are quite a few jokes and interesting stories to illustrate difficult concepts in the book.There are quite a few interesting quotes, stories, and anecdotes in each chapter which are relevant to that chapter and make it fascinating.There are 12 chapters in the second edition and there are notes to each chapter after that.Chapters are more or less disjoint and cover a wide range of topics like significance test, clinical trials, life tables, and survival analysis, mathematics of MMR and topics like the application of statistics in law and summarising of evidence.Since COVID-19 is still prevalent, author has suggested to start reading the book from Chapter 12, followed by Chapter 11 which covers the story of MMR.By the end of the book, readers will understand how probability reasoning is crucial in making informed medical decisions that impact their health and life.I will strongly recommend this book to statisticians as well as non-statisticians who are working in the area of public health or otherwise.