Diagnosis and Prediction

A collection of refereed papers from a six-week workshop on statistics in the health sciences. Areas covered centred around critical issues and difficulties in using and interpreting diagnostic tests, implementing mass screening programmes and the prediction or control of future events.

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This volume contains refereed papers submitted by participants of the third week of a six week workshop on Statistics in the Health Sciences held by the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications in Minneapolis, Minnesota during July of 1997. This week was devoted to the closely related topics of Diagnosis and Prediction. Theoretical and applied statisticians from universities, medical and public health schools, government and private research institutions, and pharmaceutical companies involved in prediction problems in the life and social sciences and in diagnostic and screening tests were brought together to discuss and exchange new results and information on these important issues. A number of papers with applications were presented and especially lively discussions ensued involving the critical issues and difficulties in using and interpreting diagnostic tests and implementing mass screening programs. Both frequentist and Bayesian approaches were employed. The importance of predicting or controlling future events such as survival, comparative survival and survival post intervention for a disease or even for certain biological or natural events is growing rapidly.
This area of concern was also represented by participants who presented work that devised predictive methodology for a variety of problems mainly from a Bayesian perspective.