Case-Control Study — Observational Epidemiological Design

A case-control study is a retrospective observational design in which individuals who have developed a disease or outcome of interest (cases) are compared with individuals who have not (controls) to determine whether prior exposure to a putative risk factor differs between the two groups. The primary measure of association is the odds ratio, which approximates the relative risk when the outcome is rare. Case-control studies are especially efficient for investigating rare diseases and generating etiological hypotheses.