case-control study case-control study
Research that uses existing data to compare a group of participants with a disease or trait to a group without the same disease or trait.
Example of case-control study in a sentence
A case-control study tries to find out if specific events or situations that happened in the past might be related to a health outcome.
More Info
A case-control study is a type of observational study that generally uses data that already exists to answer a research question.
The group of participants that have the specific disease or trait (“case” group) is compared to those that do not (“control” group) to see if there is an event or exposure is related to an outcome.
For example, researchers might compare people with lung cancer to people without lung cancer to ask if smoking cigarettes was more common in one versus the other. Case-control studies can show that the two are related, but they do not show that one causes the other.
Other info to think about when joining a study
You might see the term “case-control study” used in study documents or consent forms.
During case-control studies, researchers may review your medical records for data. They could also ask you to complete surveys or provide a biological specimen like blood or saliva.
If you are asked to consent to a case-control study, you can ask how the study team plans to get your medical records and what information they will try to get from your records.
You could also ask if they may share any of this information and overall results with you.
