title: Analytic strategies in hospital epidemiology: cross-sectional studies.
abstract: Prevalence studies have long been a cornerstone of chronic disease epidemiology and infectious hospital epidemiology. However, application of cross-sectional techniques to non-infectious areas of hospital epidemiology has been limited to large scale period prevalence studies of mortality. The architecture of cross-sectional studies was reviewed in detail, highlighting the descriptive power of such studies and acknowledging problems in proving causation as opposed to association. An application of cross-sectional methodology in evaluating blood product use, which takes advantage of the descriptive strengths of the method and availability of information concerning indications for blood use, was outlined. The cross-sectional method should be as useful a tool in evaluating non-communicable disease quality of care as it has been in infectious disease-related hospital epidemiology.
authors: Department of Quality Assurance, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut.
authors: W B
authors: WB
authors: Credé
authors: W J
authors: WJ
authors: Hierholzer
mesh_terms: D001803:Blood Transfusion / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D003428:Cross Infection / Q000453:epidemiology; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003625:Data Collection; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D006801:Humans; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care