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Case control, cross sectional, and cohort studies

Types of epidemiological (observational) study designs

Belbasis L, Bellou V. Introduction to Epidemiological Studies. Methods Mol Biol. 2018;1793:1-6. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4939-7868-7_1. PMID: 29876887.

Ecological studies. In: Epidemiology for the uninitiated, 4th edition. Retrieved March 25, 2024 from: https://www.bmj.com/about-bmj/resources-readers/publications/epidemiology-uninitiated/6-ecological-studies 

NOTE: A word of caution for the next set of filters: Authors do not always use the appropriate terminology when describing their epidemiologic studies. This is true for the above as well, but we have noticed that the following study types are more frequently not identified as such in their titles or citations. Not only that, but a retrospective study can be a type of cohort study or it can be a type of case-control study! Use these filters with some caution. They will locate the kinds of study they should, but only when the author knows what kind of study they have done and has described it as such!

Case-control studies (Updated 22 March 2024) 

(Case-Control Studies[MESH:NOEXP] OR Matched-Pair Analysis[MESH:NOEXP] OR "case control"[TIAB])


Cohort studies (Reviewed 22 March 2024) 

cohort studies[MESH:NOEXP] OR longitudinal studies[MESH:NOEXP] OR follow-up studies[MESH:NOEXP] OR prospective studies[MESH:NOEXP] OR retrospective studies[MESH:NOEXP] OR cohort[TIAB] OR longitudinal[TIAB] OR prospective[TIAB]


Cross sectional studies (Updated 25 March 2024) 

(Cross-Sectional Studies[MESH:NOEXP] OR Prevalence[MESH:NOEXP] OR "association study"[TIAB:~2] OR "association studies"[TIAB:~2] OR  "ecological studies"[TIAB] OR "ecological study"[TIAB] OR cross-sectional[TIAB] OR prevalence[TIAB] OR transversal[TIAB] OR association[TI] OR associations[TI])


Case-crossover and case-time-control studies (Updated 22 March 2024)

These are epidemiological study designs that I am not familiar with but this article does describe when and how to use them:

  • Greenland S. Confounding and exposure trends in case-crossover and case-time-control designs. Epidemiology. 1996 May;7(3):231-9. doi: 10.1097/00001648-199605000-00003. PMID: 8728434. (Article link requires Pitt login)

("case crossover"[TIAB] OR ("case time"[TIAB] and "time control"[TIAB]))

Incidence & Prevalence studies

Incidence studies (updated August 8, 2018)

Incidence[MESH:NOEXP] OR incidence[TIAB] OR incidences[TIAB]


Prevalence studies (updated August 7, 2018) 

Prevalence[MESH:NOEXP] OR cross-sectional studies[MESH:NOEXP] OR prevalence[TIAB] OR prevalences[TIAB]

Note: Cross-sectional studies are appropriate study design for determining prevalence. You may want to include the broader cross-sectional studies search filter.