Definitions to learn

Question 1

Sample

Answer 1

A small part or quantity intended to show what the whole is like

Question 2

Population

Answer 2

All inhabitants of a particular place

Question 3

Case

Answer 3

An example of something occurring/an instance of a disease, injury/problem

Question 4

Control

Answer 4

A person or thing used as a standard of comparison for checking the results of a survey or experiment

Question 5

Randomised

Answer 5

Make random in order/arrangement, employ random selection/sampling

Question 6

Controlled

Answer 6

Is used as a constant and unchanging standard of comparison

Question 7

Ecological Study

Answer 7

Observational study, compare groups of people (countries, occupations), appropriate for initial investigation of a casual hypothesis

Question 8

Register

Answer 8

An official list/record or names/items

Question 9

Counterfactual

Answer 9

Expressing what has not happened/is not the case

Question 10

Analytical

Answer 10

Use of function words, auxiliary verbs and changes in word order to express syntactic relations, rather than of inflected forms

Question 11

Sampling Bias

Answer 11

Bias in which the sample is collected in such a way that members of intended population are less likely to be included than others

Question 12

Error

Answer 12

A measure of the estimated difference between the observed or calculated value of a quantity and its true value

Question 13

Bias

Answer 13

Inclination/prejudice for/against one person/group, in a way considered to be unfair

Question 14

Information Bias

Answer 14

Bias arising from measurement error, observational bias and misclassification (collecting wrong information on right group of people)

Question 15

Confounding

Answer 15

Mixing it up with something else/confusion – not according to expectations

Question 16

Blinding

Answer 16

Deprived of understanding, judgement or perception

Question 17

Intention-to-treat

Answer 17

A method of analysis for randomized trials in which all patients are randomly assigned to one of the treatments are analysed together

Question 18

Placebo

Answer 18

A substance that has no therapeutic effected, used as a control

Question 19

Casuality

Answer 19

The relationship between cause and effect, principle that everything has a cause

Question 20

Descriptive

Answer 20

Describing/classifying in an objective and non-judgemental way

Question 21

Anecdote

Answer 21

Story about a real person/incident, account regarded as unreliable or hearsay

Question 22

Cross-sectional

Answer 22

Type of observation study that involves the analysis of data collected from a population, or a representative subset, at one specific point in time

Question 23

Case-control

Answer 23

Compares a group of people with the disease (cases) with a group of people who don’t have the disease (controls)

looks back retrospectively to compare how frequently the exposure to a risk factor is present in each group to determine the relationship between risk factor and exposure

Question 24

Cohort

Answer 24

A group of people with a shared characteristic

Question 25

Experimental

Answer 25

Based on untested ideas/techniques and not yet established/finalised

Question 26

Observational

Answer 26

Act of recognising and noting a fact/occurrence often involving measurement with instruments (record/description obtained)

Question 27

Retrospective

Answer 27

Looking back on/dealing with past events/situations

Question 28

Prospective

Answer 28

Expected to be specified thing in future

Question 29

Epidemiology

Answer 29

Incidence, distribution and possible control of disease and other factors relating to health