Session 5 Flashcards
What type of epidemiological study is a cross-sectional study?
It is an observational, analytical study.
What are the characteristics of a cross-sectional study?
It looks at a population at a snapshot in time.
Recruits participants based on exposures that have occurred before the research starts.
What are the strengths of cross-sectional studies?
They are inexpensive.
They are good for studying prevalence of a disease.
They can be used to generate hypotheses, which can be used for in-depth research.
Data can be collected on different exposures and outcomes to study associations.
What are the non-bias weaknesses of cross-sectional studies?
Causality cannot be assessed.
Findings may be time sensitive - some exposures take a long time to cause an outcome, so doesn’t reflect the lag time.
Generalisability.
There may be confounding factors that are additional factors that affect the outcome.
What are the different bias types associated with cross-sectional studies?
Selection bias - the sample not being representative of the population.
Responder bias - whether they stay in the study and do not drop out; certain types of people are going to respond to the study.
Measurement bias - the ability to categorise the results correctly.
What is generalisability?
Whether the findings are correct and able to be applied to different populations.
What are some types of studies that cross-sectional can be applied to?
Exposures that are constant, that cannot be caused by other things:
- Genetics.
What are biases or confounding depending on?
The study design and nature of the data, not (always) the type of study.
What is reporting bias?
Changing the focus of the study to make an association the main finding of the study.
What is publication bias?
Only publishing studies that have a statistically or clinically significant result.
