Selecting appropriate study designs to address specific.
Classification of study designs Figure 1 depicts a simple classification of research study designs. The Centre for Evidence-based Medicine has put forward a useful three-point algorithm which can help determine the design of a research study from its methods section:( 1 ) Figure 1.This module will focus on analytical epidemiological studies. Epidemiological studies can also be prospective or retrospective. A prospective study is one where the study starts before the exposure and outcome are ascertained. A retrospective study is one where the study starts after the exposure (and probably outcome) has been ascertained.Epidemiologic study designs In previous topics we investigated issues in defining disease and other health-related outcomes, in quantitating disease occurrence in populations, in relating disease rates to factors of interest, and in exploring and monitoring disease rates and relationships in populations.
Various epidemiological study designs are available to investigate illness and injury risks related to workplace exposures. The choice of study design to address a particular research question will be guided by the nature of the health outcome under study, its presumed relation to workplace exposures, and feasibility constraints.Epidemiology is a population’s health science. It utilizes a population approach for the study of the distribution (person, place, and time) and determinants (biological, social) of health and disease in defined populations of varying characteristics, and how to use the information for the prevention and control of various health problems.
There are two primary types of nonexperimental studies in epidemiology. The first, the cohort study (also called thefollow-up study or incidence study), is a direct analogue of the experiment; different exposure groups are compared, but (as in Snow's study) the in- vestigator does not assign the exposure.
