MCC-UE 1040 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Recall Bias, Exchangeable Random Variables, Exposure Assessment

• School: New York University
• Department: Media, Culture & Communication
• Course: MCC-UE 1040
• Professor: phoungthao Le

Document Summary

One group has the disease of interest (cases) and a comparable group is free from the disease (controls) Identifies possible causes of disease by finding out how the two groups (cases & controls) differe w/respect to (previous) exposure to some factor. Once the cases & controls are selected, you gather information on their exposure status. Then you can calculate the association b/w the exposure & having the disease. Disease has long induction & latent period - would have to follow study participants for a long time. Underlying population is dynamic - hard to keep track of population that is constantly changing. Little is known about disease - investigators can evaluate more than one hypothesis. The direction of the case control study is always retrospective. Ask cases & controls about their exposure experiences in the past. Unit of observation & analysis is the individual. Data collection may involve a combination of both primary & secondary sources.