Good information about the principles behind screening tests is readily available on the Internet in places like Wikipedia and on more specialized sites. Below are some resources I've found particularly useful.
Helena
Chmura Kraemer Evaluating Medical Tests. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1992.
I have learnt a great deal from Helena Kraemer's many publications. This book
draws together work published in earlier journal articles. Her more recent
publications on this and other topics in medical research are equally worth
seeking out.
Gerd Gigerenzer Reckoning with Risk. London: Penguin, 2002.
(Published in the US as Calculated Risks: How To Know When Numbers Deceive
You.) This book is aimed at a general audience but everyone who works with
screening and diagnostic tests should read it. See also Prof Gigerenzer's BMJ article Gigerenzer,
G. & Edwards, A. (2003) Simple tools for understanding risks: from
innumeracy to insight. BMJ, 327,
741-744.
Stephen
Senn Dicing with Death: Chance, Risk and Health. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press, 2003. This book is about the statistical principles behind
medical decision making in general. Once again, it's aimed a general audience,
not just statisticians but is well worth reading. More details at Stephen Senn's
website.
John Uebersax's website has useful recommendations for conducting agreement
analyses and other, related topics.
When DAG_Stat was written there was a lack of an advanced, rigorous text on screening and diagnostic tests. Since them, two such books have been published:
Pepe, M.S.
(2003) The Statistical Evaluation of Medical Tests for Classification and
Prediction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Zhou, X.-H.,
McClish, D.K. & Obuchowski, N.A. (2002) Statistical Methods in Diagnostic
Medicine. New York: Wiley.
If you have a site or other accessible material that would be of interest to DAG_Stat users and would like it listed above, please contact me.
