Logistic Regression: A Primer (Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences)

Trying to determine when to use a logistic regression and how to interpret the coefficients?

Frustrated by the technical writing in other books on the topic?

Pampel′s book offers readers the first "nuts and bolts" approach to doing logistic regression through the use of careful explanations and worked out examples. Pampel first offers readers a review of some basic concepts, such as exponents, percentage change, and likelihood functions. Next, he describes in some detail how taking the log of the odds eliminates the floor so that the transformation of logistic regression coefficients into coefficients that effect odds and probabilities makes more sense to readers. And, third, he describes maximum likelihood estimation through words and simple samples (along side of the formulas) so as to make the concept more concrete and the procedure easier to comprehend. Throughout the book, he emphasizes examples, explanations, and how to interpret the results of each procedure. This book will enable readers to use and understand logistic regression techniques and will serve as a foundation for more advanced treatments of the topic.

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FRED C. PAMPEL is Research Professor of Sociology and a Research Associate in the Population Program at the University of Colorado Boulder. He received a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, in 1977, and has previously taught at the University of Iowa, University of North Carolina, and Florida State University. His research focuses on socioeconomic disparities in health behaviors, smoking in particular, and on the experimental and quasi-experimental methods for evaluation of social programs for youth.  He is the author of several books on population aging, cohort change, and public policy, and his work has appeared in the American Sociological Review, the American Journal of Sociology, Demography, Social Forces, and the European Sociological Review.