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Cohort Study

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine

  • 21 Accesses

Synonyms

Follow-up study; Observational designs; Observational studies; Observational study

Definition

A cohort study is an observational study design in which subjects are usually selected based on their risk factor exposure and followed over time to evaluate whether they develop the outcome of interest (usually disease).

Description

Cohort studies are commonly used in behavioral medicine research to investigate associations in which experimental designs are unethical or too costly. In a cohort design, participants who have not experienced the outcome of interest are selected, usually based on whether or not they have been exposed to the risk factor of interest. Therefore, a cohort study design is efficient when the exposure is relatively rare but the outcome of interest is common. For example, a cohort design was used in a study of the association of prenatal polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) exposure with behavior issues and cognitive disability (Lai et al. 2002). A cohort design is...

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References and Further Reading

  • Dawber, T. R., Kannel, W. B., & Lyell, L. P. (1963). An approach to longitudinal studies in a community: The Framingham study. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 107(2), 539–556.

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  • Hennekens, C. H., Buring, J. E., & Mayrent, S. L. (1987). Epidemiology in medicine. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

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  • Kleinbaum, D. G., Sullivan, K. M., & Barker, N. D. (2007). A pocket guide to epidemiology. New York: Springer.

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  • Lai, T. J., Liu, X., Guo, Y. L., Guo, N., Yu, M., Hsu, C., et al. (2002). A cohort study of behavioral problems and intelligence in children with high prenatal polychlorinated biphenyl exposure. Archives of General Psychiatry, 59(11), 1061–1066.

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  • Wolf, M. E., Alexander, B. H., Rivara, F. P., Hickok, D. E., Maier, R. V., & Starzyk, P. M. (1993). A retrospective cohort study of seatbelt use and pregnancy outcome after a motor vehicle crash. The Journal of Trauma, 34(1), 116.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biostatistics, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Jane Monaco

Authors
  1. Jane Monaco
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jane Monaco .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Miami School of Medicine, Miami, FL, USA

    Marc Gellman

Section Editor information

  1. Clinical Communications, Quintiles, Durham, NC, USA

    J. Rick Turner

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Monaco, J. (2019). Cohort Study. In: Gellman, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6439-6_999-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6439-6_999-2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-6439-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-6439-6

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