Non-random Reflections on Health Services Research

Ed Alan Maynard, Iain Chalmers BMJ Publishing Group, £23, pp 112 ISBN 0 7279 1151 1

Archie Cochrane, one of the great postwar epidemiologists, argued the case for applying the best clinical science methods to the nascent subject of health services research. This book is a delightful compendium of reminiscences and reviews of progress that also develops the theme that “researchers and health professionals will serve public interests more effectively when they come to regard lay people as the ‘coproducers’ of the knowledge needed for effective and efficient promotion of their own and the public health.”

This volume celebrates the 25th anniversary of the publication by the …