Book reviews

Coming soon...

A review of Making Data Talk: Communicating Public Health Data to the Public, Policy Makers, and the Press by Nelson et al - watch this space.

Mastering Public Health

Mastering Public Health: a postgraduate guide to examinations and revalidation
Lewis G, Sheringham J, Kalim K and Crayford T
ISBN 9781853157813
£39.95, 602pp, Paperback, July 2008 

Is this book ‘the one’ that people sitting the Part A have been yearning for? Having spent a few weeks looking through Mastering Public Health, comparing it with my experiences of Part A and my revision notes, I would say an (almost) unqualified ‘yes’.

Mastering Public Health is intended as a ‘one stop shop’ textbook for people sitting their MFPH Part A – something which didn’t previously exist. For those lucky individuals taking MRCP and many of the other Royal College exams there have been comprehensive revision texts available for years, but here in the world of public health the notion has taken a while to catch on. Fortunately Lewis and colleagues have brought the field to its senses, with a succint yet comprehensive guide to the whole Part A syllabus.

Conveniently, the book is laid out almost exactly as the syllabus – so Section 1 is on Research Methods, Section 2 on Disease Causation and Health Promotion, etc. Although this wouldn’t suit a general PH text, this is eminently sensible in a revision text and means you can always find something (even if it may not necessarily be in huge depth) on every topic mentioned in the Part A syllabus. Previously, candidates had to make do with a random assortment of general textbooks, revision notes, Google and Wikipedia, and even then some of the more obscure entries on the syllabus could be hard to come by. Where information can be summarised in a table or figure, it is, and the text is well cross-referenced to other relevant sections. Also importantly for a reference book, the index seems complete – a common oversight in many otherwise excellent books. The general writing style is nicely pithy, with a good bibliography for each chapter should you want to delve into greater depths on a particular topic. Examples which are given are usually contemporaneous – so predictive risk modelling, Connecting for Health, and the Stern review are all mentioned; no doubt this is helped by the authors’ backgrounds – three current trainees and a DPH.

Particularly strong sections are those on epidemiology and statistics – never easy topics to get across, but complemented well here by plenty of examples and a flowchart to work out which test to use. And the ‘Top Fives’ section helpfully lists 5 introductory or seminal papers for a variety of subject areas; if everyone buys this book the uniqueness of citing these may decrease, but arguably the papers stand on their own merit and any candidate who has read them and can apply them to their exam appropriately should be rewarded regardless.

So is it all roses? Very nearly. In general most concepts or external references are briefly critiqued in the text (e.g. as a summary advantages/disadvantages table), but on occasion this was conspicuous in its absence – in the section on complementary and alternative therapies, for example, the increasing popularity and professionalisation of the industry is described, but without any accompanying commentary on the current evidence for the efficacy or safety of those therapies. A section on emails that suggests you should ‘reply within 24 h wherever possible’ and use the ‘reply to all’ button sparingly, seem strangely out of place in this book, although the authors could reasonably argue that this is for its readers who are going through revalidation rather than taking the Part A. And I would be slightly wary of applying the approach recommended by the authors in the ‘Answer Frameworks’ section: “A recurrent gripe mentioned in the examiners’ comments is that candidates’ answers lack structure. To avoid this candidates must ensure that – without exception – every word that they write during the examination fits into a structure.” Whilst this seems generally good advice – and the accompanying structures are perfectly reasonable – the examiners have also said in the past that too many people apply such frameworks injudiciously and end up missing the point of the question. So perhaps a ‘caveat lector’ statement would have been useful here. Finally, in the age of the internet reports of the death of the book may have been exaggerated, but many general texts now include a web update service so their readers can keep abreast of the field between print editions; this is lacking and for the not inconsiderable price (RRP £39.95), would have been welcome. But these are minor niggles in an otherwise excellent book.

Does Mastering Public Health do what it sets out to? For those taking the Part A in the UK, this book provides comprehensive, intelligent coverage of the MFPH syllabus, and if I was taking the exam now the decision whether to buy Mastering Public Health would be a no-brainer. That’s not to say that this would be the only book I would refer to – as a matter of principle I would probably still sneak a look at the Oxford Handbook of Public Health Practice, and Donaldson and Donaldson, for a different perspective; and for some topics, such as stats, it can be helpful to read other explanations for particularly tricky concepts. But Mastering Public Health would definitely serve as the basis for my revision.

For those taking similar postgraduate exams abroad, or pursuing revalidation, it’s difficult for me to assess the suitability of this book, due to my background rather than any obvious deficiencies in the text – a number of examples are given not only for the UK but other developed countries, and many of the theoretical sections are equally applicable anywhere in the world. And certainly for revalidation in the UK it would be a good starting point, even if further supplementation was required.

Score: 9/10

Pros: Comprehensive and very readable; structure follows Part A syllabus; contemporaneous examples; good index and bibliography

Cons: No web update service; a little pricey

Declaration of interest: I have previously worked briefly with one of the authors of this book, Dr Tim Crayford