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case-control study

— A type of non-randomized study comparing the characteristics of people with a particular health condition (cases) with the characteristics of people without that condition (controls), to find what may have caused the problem


matched pair study

Full explanation:

Case-control studies are often used to investigate causes of health conditions that are serious and rare. This is because other study designs, such as randomized studies, would need to be very large to have enough statistical power to detect an effect.

Case-control studies are also sometimes undertaken to evaluate effects that are subsequently confirmed by other studies.


For example, a comparison of people admitted to hospital with heart attacks (cases) with others admitted with different diagnoses found that the people with heart attacks were less likely to have used aspirin. The apparent protective effect of aspirin against heart attack was subsequently confirmed in randomized studies.

See also:

non-randomized study

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