EPID 301 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Confounding, Rare Disease, Osteoporosis
7 Jul 2018
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Epid 301 lecture 6: categories of epidemiologic studies. Epidemiologic studies can be 1) observational or 2) experimental: exposures and outcomes. Exposure": any factor that might inluence health, positively or negatively. Conventional (virus, chemicals) but also, personal characteristics such as sex, age, skin colour, etc. Outcome": most often disease, but can be any type of health-related status being investigated (morbidity) E. g. disability, smoking status, vaccination status, pregnancy, etc: observational studies. Observational studies may test hypotheses between speciic exposures and outcomes. Investigator collects information about exposure(s) and outcome(s) to identify areas for further study or to draw inferences about etiology (cause of the disease) We are not establishing the etiology but we are trying to get the potential cause. Without randomization, alternate explanations for any association that is observed need to be considered. People might not want to be exposed to something. Sometimes it is not ethical to allocate some individuals (problem with randomization)
