2. Population Level Study Design

Question 1

What are the 4 types of evidence

Answer 1

Description - what happened to who
Prediction - what will happen, who, what’s more likely
Causal inference - what will happen if, why were they affected
Qualitative - what matters n why, how or should you change X

Question 2

What is a case series

Answer 2

Describes a sample of cases with the same disease

Can look at description of natural history and prediction of prognosis

Question 3

What is a register based study

Answer 3

Type of case series
Disease registers = count and collect info on people with a certain disease
Commonly population based

Question 4

What is a cross sectional study

Answer 4

Study a group of people at a single point

Question 5

What are case control studies

Answer 5

study that compares patients who have a disease or outcome of interest (cases) with patients who do not have the disease or outcome (controls), and looks back retrospectively to compare how frequently the exposure to a risk factor is present in each group to determine the relationship between the risk factor and the disease.

Question 6

Advantages of case control studies

Answer 6

Good for rare disease
Cheaper faster than a cohort study
Can investigate multiple exposures at a time

Question 7

Disadvantages of case control studies

Answer 7

Recall bias
Need suitable control group
Can establish correlation but not causation