Abstract
A broad review is given of the general principles underlying study design with emphasis on applications in medical and epidemiological contexts. The main theme of the paper is that, while the distinction between interventionist studies, that is experiments, and purely observational ones is important, there are many common threads. A wide range of specific applications are used in outline to illustrate the discussion.
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Acknowledgments
I am grateful to David Allison, John Goldthorpe, Christiana Kartsonaki, Ruth Keogh, Nancy Reid, Tom Snijders, Bianca de Stavola, Jan Vandenbroucke and Nanny Wermuth for very helpful comments. The paper is based on lectures given at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and at Erasmus MC, Rotterdam . I thank anonymous questioners at these lectures. Finally the paper benefited considerably from very constructive suggestions by the referees.
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Cox, D.R. The design of empirical studies: towards a unified view. Eur J Epidemiol 31, 217–228 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-016-0135-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-016-0135-9