Advantages and Disadvantages of Case-Control Studies
Advantages:
- They are efficient for rare diseases or diseases with a long latency period between exposure and disease manifestation.
- They are less costly and less time-consuming; they are advantageous when exposure data is expensive or hard to obtain.
- They are advantageous when studying dynamic populations in which follow-up is difficult.
Disadvantages:
- They are subject to selection bias.
- They are inefficient for rare exposures.
- Information on exposure is subject to observation bias.
- They generally do not allow calculation of incidence (absolute risk).
