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Case-Control Studies

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine

  • 19 Accesses

Synonyms

Observational designs; Observational studies; Observational study

Definition

A case-control study is a study in which subjects are selected based on their outcome status, such as with disease or disease-free. Investigators select cases (subjects with the outcome of interest) and controls (subjects without the outcome of interest) and then compare the exposure (or risk factor) status in the two groups.

Description

Case-control studies are a very common observational study design within behavioral medicine research. Because the participants are selected based on their outcome status (commonly disease status), this study design is well suited for an outcome that is rare. For diseases with long latency periods (for example, melanoma or coronary heart disease), case-control studies can also be time efficient because the outcome has already occurred at the initiation of the study. When the exposure (or risk factor) is rare, a case-control study is often not practical.

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References and Further Reading

  • Brent, D. A., Perper, J. A., Moritz, G., Allman, C., Friend, A., Roth, C., et al. (1993). Psychiatric risk factors for adolescent suicide: A case-control study. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 32(3), 521–529.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Hennekens, C. H., Buring, J. E., & Mayrent, S. L. (1987). Epidemiology in medicine. Boston: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

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  • Kleinbaum, D. G., Sullivan, K. M., & Barker, N. D. (2007). A pocket guide to epidemiology. New York: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rockenbauer, M., Olsen, J., Czeizel, A. E., Pedersen, L., & Sørensen, H. T. (2001). Recall bias in a case-control surveillance system on the use of medicine during pregnancy. Epidemiology, 12(4), 461–466.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biostatistics, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Jane Monaco

Authors
  1. Jane Monaco
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jane Monaco .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Miami School of Medicine, Miami, FL, USA

    Marc Gellman

Section Editor information

  1. Clinical Communications, Quintiles, Durham, NC, USA

    J. Rick Turner

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© 2019 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature

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Monaco, J. (2019). Case-Control Studies. In: Gellman, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6439-6_990-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6439-6_990-2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-6439-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-6439-6

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