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Previous Volume 350:627 February 5, 2004 Number 6 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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(Rochester Studies in Medical History. Vol. 3.) By William G. Rothstein. 466 pp. Rochester, N.Y., University of Rochester Press, 2003. $95. ISBN 1-58046-127-1.

"The acceptance of risk factors has produced changes in public health and medicine as profound as those that resulted from bacteriology and the germ theory of disease. . . . The risk factor concept has been controversial because of its statistical methodology, its multifactorial concept of disease etiology, and its effect on the economic interests of commercial, professional, and health organisations." This excerpt from the preface provides an excellent summary of this book.

William Rothstein, professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, explains how "the risk factor" arose in life insurance and from developments in population statistics and probability . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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