Bayesian Nested Case-Control Study

A Bayesian nested case-control study embeds a case-control sampling scheme within a defined prospective cohort and then estimates exposure-outcome associations using Bayesian inference. Cases are individuals in the cohort who develop the outcome of interest; controls are sampled from the risk set at the time each case is identified. The Bayesian framework allows incorporation of prior knowledge — from earlier studies, expert opinion, or biological plausibility — and produces full posterior distributions for effect estimates rather than single-point estimates with confidence intervals.