title: Case-control studies: basic concepts.
abstract: The purpose of this article is to present in elementary mathematical and statistical terms a simple way to quickly and effectively teach and understand case-control studies, as they are commonly done in dynamic populations-without using the rare disease assumption. Our focus is on case-control studies of disease incidence ('incident case-control studies'); we will not consider the situation of case-control studies of prevalent disease, which are published much less frequently.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands. J.P.Vandenbroucke@lumc.nl
authors.forename: Jan P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Vandenbroucke
authors.forename: Neil
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Pearce
mesh_terms: D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D011157:Population Dynamics; D012107:Research Design