Book excerpt: Practical Statistical Methods: A SAS Programming Approach presents a broad spectrum of statistical methods useful for researchers without an extensive statistical background. In addition to nonparametric methods, it covers methods for discrete and continuous data. Omitting mathematical details and complicated formulae, the text provides SAS programs to carry out the necessary analyses and draw appropriate inferences for common statistical problems. After introducing fundamental statistical concepts, the author describes methods used for quantitative data and continuous data following normal and nonnormal distributions. She then focuses on regression methodology, highlighting simple linear regression, logistic regression, and the proportional hazards model. The final chapter briefly discusses such miscellaneous topics as propensity scores, misclassification errors, interim analysis, conditional power, bootstrap, and jackknife. With SAS code and output integrated throughout, this book shows how to interpret data using SAS and illustrates the many statistical methods available for tackling problems in a range of fields, including the pharmaceutical industry and the social sciences.