Norman Breslow, medical researcher, Died at 74

  Health care

Norman Edward Breslow was born on February 21, 1941, and died on December 9, 2015.

He was an American statistician and medical researcher.

At the time of his death, Norman was Professor (Emeritus) of Biostatistics in the School of Public Health, of the University of Washington.

He is co-author or author of hundreds of published works during 1967 to 2015.

Among his many accomplishments is his work with co-author Nicholas Day that developed and popularized the use of case-control matched sample research designs, in the two-volume work Statistical Methods in Cancer Research.

This was with view that matched sample studies have a role within larger program of many types of studies, in making progress on a vast and important problem like cancer.

Matched sample studies can quickly and cheaply test some hypothesized relationships, but their apparent findings are not definitive, and there’s much they cannot accomplish.

Their results, however, can inform the design of slow and expensive longitudinal large-cohort studies that are definitive, for example.

Dose-response studies and other studies, too, are elements of a rational scientific program to address cancer.

Norman Edward Breslow passed away due to prostate cancer in December 2915.