Research Topic · Peer-Reviewed

Case-control Studies

Case-control studies are an observational, analytic research design used to investigate the association between an exposure and an outcome, typically a disease or condition. The design begins by identifying a group of individuals who already have the outcome of interest, the cases, and a comparable group who do not,…

Curated from this journal's research 📚 8 peer-reviewed articles cited Cited 58× across the literature 🔖 ISSN 2641-5518 🗓 Reviewed July 2026

Overview

Case-control studies are an observational, analytic research design used to investigate the association between an exposure and an outcome, typically a disease or condition. The design begins by identifying a group of individuals who already have the outcome of interest, the cases, and a comparable group who do not, the controls, and then looks backward to compare the prior frequency of one or more exposures or risk factors between the two groups. This retrospective orientation makes case-control studies particularly efficient for studying rare diseases and conditions with long latency, and for examining multiple potential risk factors for a single outcome, as illustrated by studies relating factors such as serum vitamin D status to oral lichen planus. Because cases and controls are defined by outcome status, the measure of association derived is the odds ratio, which estimates the relative odds of exposure. The validity of a case-control study depends heavily on appropriate control selection, accurate ascertainment of exposure, and control of confounding, and the design is susceptible to selection and recall bias. Unlike cohort studies, case-control studies cannot directly measure incidence or, in general, establish temporal sequence with certainty. Properly conducted, however, they remain a valuable and economical tool in clinical and epidemiological research for generating and testing hypotheses about the determinants of disease.

Research published in this journal

8 peer-reviewed articles, ranked by relevance. Each links to its DOI.

How this research is being cited

The 8 articles above have been cited 58 times in the scholarly literature. Citation data via OpenAlex and Crossref, updated Jun 2026.

A sample of recent works citing this journal's research on Case-control Studies, linking to each citing work.

Editorial oversight

Curated from peer-reviewed research published in Clinical Case Reports and Images (ISSN 2641-5518).

Journal editorial board
Majaz Moonis · United States Berton Alessandra · Italy Young-Kyun Lee · South Korea

This page summarises published research for orientation; it is not medical or professional advice.