เปรียบเทียบวิธี

	การศึกษาทางระบาดวิทยาภาคตัดขวาง	การทดลองทางคลินิกแบบสุ่ม (RCT)
สาขาวิชา	ระบาดวิทยา	ระบาดวิทยา
ตระกูล	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
ปีกำเนิด	1960s (formal codification); widely practiced since mid-20th century	1948 (first rigorously conducted RCT — MRC streptomycin trial)
ผู้ริเริ่ม	Classical epidemiology tradition; systematized by Brian MacMahon and Thomas Pugh (1960s)	Austin Bradford Hill; MRC Streptomycin Trial team
ประเภท	Observational, descriptive/analytic epidemiological design	Interventional experimental study
แหล่งต้นตำรับ	Kelsey, J. L., Whittemore, A. S., Evans, A. S., & Thompson, W. D. (1996). Methods in Observational Epidemiology (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN: 978-0195080407	Friedman, L. M., Furberg, C. D., DeMets, D. L., Reboussin, D. M., & Granger, C. B. (2015). Fundamentals of Clinical Trials (5th ed.). Springer. ISBN: 978-3319185385
ชื่อเรียกอื่น	prevalence study, cross-sectional survey, transversal study, cross-sectional design	RCT, randomized controlled trial, randomised controlled trial, clinical randomized trial
ที่เกี่ยวข้อง	6	6
สรุป	A cross-sectional epidemiological study measures the exposure(s) and outcome(s) of interest simultaneously in a defined population at a single point in time (or over a short period). Because there is no follow-up, it is the most efficient observational design for estimating disease prevalence and for generating hypotheses about associations between risk factors and health outcomes.	A randomized clinical trial (RCT) is an experimental study design in which participants are randomly assigned to an intervention group or a control group, then followed prospectively to compare outcomes. Random allocation is the defining feature: it distributes known and unknown confounders across groups by chance, making the RCT the strongest individual study design for establishing causal efficacy of a treatment or intervention under controlled conditions.