Assume you work for CDC and you were assigned to develop a s

Assume you work for CDC and you were assigned to develop a study to investigate the relationship between consumption of sweetened soda and diabetes, which type of study design would you select :

1) Ecologic, retrospective, prospective, cross-sectional or experimental?

2) Explain why you chose it.

3) Identify an advantage to this design and explain it in relation to your design.

4) Identify a disadvantage to this design and explain it in relation to your design.

Please help me I\'m stuck big time! Thanks!!

Solution

Epidemiology is the study of the causes and effects of the health and disease conditions in a given population.

Epidemiological studies can be carried out in the following ways a) observational study

b) experimental study

Observational study is further classified as Descriptive and analytical.

Analytical study is further classified as 1. ecological

2. cross sectional

3.case control study

4. cohort study

cohort study further classified as a) progressive

b) retrogressive.

Experimental study design further classified as 1. Randomised control trial

2.Field trial

3.Community trial.

As assigned for CDC ( center for disease control ), to investigate the relationship between sweetened soda and diabetes , the study preferred by me would be Retrospective cohort study.

Retrospective cohort study , studies a group of individuals that share a common exposure factor to determine its influence on the development of a disease and compared to the another group of individuals which were not exposed to that factor.

Data is collected from two groups , that is one group who are consuming sweetened soda and having Diabetes, the other group who are consuming sweetened soda but not effected to diabetes.

These two groups are assessed and the data is collected and interpreted statistically to identify the influence of the consumption of sweetened soda on the disease .

Advantages of this model are less time consuming, less expensive.

Disadvantage is that it is difficult to make comparision between the two above said groups accurately.