Cross-Sectional Study Designs

A cross-sectional study is a type of observational study that examines data from a population, or a representative subset, at a particular point in time—that is, cross-sectional data—in the fields of medicine, social science, and biology. It is also referred to as a cross-sectional analysis, a transverse study, or a prevalence study. Cross-sectional studies, which are more common in medical research than case-control studies, aim to provide data on the entire population being studied, as opposed to case-control studies, which typically include only people who have developed a particular condition and compare them with a matched sample—often a very small minority—of the rest of the population. Descriptive studies include cross-sectional investigations. In contrast to case-control studies, they may be used to describe absolute risks and relative risks based on prevalences in addition to the odds ratio.