Advantages
- Easy to conduct as no follow up is required
- No attrition, as no follow up is needed
- Gives faster results
- Inexpensive
- Suitable for rare and newly identified diseases
- More than one risk factors can be studied simultaneously
- Ethical problem lesser as disease has already occurred
Disadvantages
- The study depends upon the history given by the subject. Hence recall bias can occur
- Sometimes finding and appropriate control is difficult
- We can only establish an association between the disease and the risk factor as we don’t know what occurred first
- We can’t know the incidence hence can’t calculate the relative risk (RR) directly from a case-control study
Examples of case-control studies:
- Study of Reye’s syndrome
- Study of adenocarcinoma of vagina
- Oral contraceptives and thrombo-embolic phenomenon
- Thalidomide tragedy
References:
Tiwari P. Epidemiology Made Easy. New Delhi: Jaypee Brothers; 2003
Gordis, L. (2014). Epidemiology (Fifth edition.). Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier Saunders.
Bonita, R., Beaglehole, R., Kjellström, T., & World Health Organization. (2006). Basic epidemiology. Geneva: World Health Organization.
Schneider, Dona, Lilienfeld, David E (Eds.), 4th ed. Lilienfeld’s Foundations of Epidemiology. New York: Oxford University Press; 2015
K. Park. Principles of Epidemiology and Epidemiologic Methods. In Park’s Textbook of Preventive and Social Medicine. 24th Ed. Jabalpur: Banarasidas Bhanot, 2017: pg 58 – 145
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Steps in Investigation of an Epidemic: http://www.ihatepsm.com/blog/epidemiology-steps-investigation-epidemic
Tests of Significance: http://www.ihatepsm.com/blog/epidemiology-tests-significance
Monitoring and Evaluation: http://www.ihatepsm.com/blog/epidemiology-monitoring-and-evaluation
Advantages and Disadvantages of Case Control Studies: http://www.ihatepsm.com/blog/epidemiology-advantages-and-disadvantages-c...
Advantages and disadvantages of cohort study: http://www.ihatepsm.com/blog/epidemiology-advantages-and-disadvantages-c...
Basic Concepts in Epidemiology: http://www.ihatepsm.com/blog/epidemiology-basic-concepts
Types of Epidemiological Studies: http://www.ihatepsm.com/blog/epidemiology-types-epidemiological-studies
Differences between Case – control and cohort study: http://www.ihatepsm.com/blog/epidemiology-differences-between-case-%E2%8...
Uses of epidemiology: http://www.ihatepsm.com/blog/epidemiology-uses-epidemiology
Blinding in Experimental Studies: http://www.ihatepsm.com/blog/blinding-experimental-studies
Evaluation of a Screening Test: http://www.ihatepsm.com/blog/epidemiology-evaluation-screening-test