Starting in the mid-1970s, the development of programmable pocket calculators meant that an epidemiologist could work anywhere and at any time, which is especially important in fieldwork. But would the epidemiologist know how to use the calculator? Even after the basic operations of the calculator were mastered, would the person remember all the calculations required for different analytical equations?
Drs. Kenneth J. Rothman and John D. Boice, Jr. sought to help the technologically and mathematically challenged epidemiologist, introducing their 1979 book Epidemiologic Analysis with a Programmable Calculator by stating:
"Our purpose in writing this book is to present a collection of pocket calculator programs developed to handle the range of analyses that most epidemiologists face routinely....Before the advent of moderately priced programmable pocket calculators, complicated numerical calculations could be accomplished only by relying upon a sizable computer or upon a willingness to plow through tedious computations, recording intermediate results along the way. The disadvantages of the large computer are inaccessibility and expense. The pencil and paper approach is often frustrating and unreliable....In the past, the most appropriate analytic procedures for epidemiologic data have often not been applied either because they were too complicated for routine use or not widely known among epidemiologists."
Some of the equations in the book, which includes those for case control studies and cohort (follow-up) studies, are used today and some are not published anywhere else. While geared specifically for the Hewlett Packard HP67 calculator, later editions of the book encompassed the HP41, 41C, and 41CV. You can see an HP 41C in our collection elsewhere on this page.
Rothman and Boice worked at the Environmental Epidemiology Branch of the National Cancer Institute.
13.0012.001 Donated by the National Cancer Institute Library
