How Are Cause and Effect Relationships Determined?
Epidemiologists use various study designs to determine these relationships:
Cohort Studies: Follow a group of people over time to see who develops the outcome of interest. Case-Control Studies: Compare individuals with the disease (cases) to those without (controls) to identify exposures that may have caused the disease. Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs): Randomly assign participants to an intervention or control group to directly test the effect of an exposure.
