General strengths and weaknesses study designs

Question 1

Cohort studies

Answer 1

Great for rare exposures, multiple outcomes, temporal relations and incidence
Bad for multiple exposures, rubbish for rare diseases

Question 2

Case control

Answer 2

Great for rare diseases and multiple exposures
Rubbish for rare exposure
Can’t really identify temporal relations, incidence
Limited to single outcome

Question 3

Cross-sectional

Answer 3

Poor for rare disease or rare exposure
Poor for temporal relations, cannot measure incidence
Fair for multiple outcomes, multiple exposures

Question 4

Ecological

Answer 4

Good for rare disease
Fair for rare exposure / multiple exposure
Poor for multiple outcomes
Cannot calculate temporal relations or incidence

Question 5

Measures of disease occurrence and association effect in Cohort study

Answer 5

Disease outcome - Risk, Rate, Odds, Mean
Association effect - Risk ratio, Rate ratio, Odds ratio
Differences - Risk, Rate

Question 6

Measures of disease occurrence and association effect in Case-control

Answer 6

Disease outcome - None
Association effect - Odds ratio

Question 7

Measures of disease occurrence and association effect in Cross-sectional

Answer 7

Disease outcome - Prevalence
Association effect - Ratios, differences, odds ratio

Question 8

Measures of disease occurrence and association effect in Ecological

Answer 8

DIsease outcome - Rate, Prevalence
Association effect - Correlation, regression coefficieient