Descriptive Studies

All epidemiological studies can be divided into observational and experimental studies.

Observational studies observe and measure the effects on disease rates of exposures of interest (as they occur in the population). They are further subdivided in Descriptive and Analytical studies.

Descriptive studies
Descriptive studies describe the distribution of disease or other health outcome in populations. They do not attempt to link outcomes to exposures, in other words they describe facts (e.g.: disease prevalence) without trying to assign aetiology to the degree of prevalence (or any other statistical value).

Example: number of deaths or number of HIV cases. Useful for health service planning. Based on existing data. 3 questions (who?, where?, when?).

Related articles

 * Analytical Studies