Description

This book covers classic epidemiological designs that use a reference/control group, including case-control, case-cohort, nested case-control and variations of these designs, such as stratified and two-stage designs. It presents a unified view of these sampling designs as representations of an underlying cohort or target population of interest. This enables various extended designs to be introduced and analysed with a similar approach: extreme sampling on the outcome (extreme case-control design) or on the exposure (exposure-enriched, exposure-density, countermatched), designs that re-use prior controls and augmentation sampling designs. Further extensions exploit aggregate data for efficient cluster sampling, accommodate time-varying exposures and combine matched and unmatched controls. Self-controlled designs, including case-crossover, self-controlled case series and exposure-crossover, are also presented. The test-negative design for vaccine studies and the use of negative controls for bias assessment are introduced and discussed.