Question

Let's say I'm conducting a study in which persons recently diagnosed with an infectious disease were recruited to provide a variety of different specimens and answer standardized clinical survey questions (with minimal follow up and no additional timepoints collected). The purpose is to study potential modes of transmission by correlating relevant clinical factors with quantitative infectious pathogen load found in different specimen types.

What's the most appropriate description of this study/recruitment design in the context of epidemiology or public health research?

I'm not epidemiologist by training, but I think I can rule out prospective recruitment along with longitudinal, cohort, and experimental study designs. It's not really a case-control study since there is no control group (hard with pathogen load as the primary outcome of interest). Basically leaves a cross-sectional observational study (unless my thinking is way off here).

Answer 1

The study you're conducting is best described as a cross-sectional observational study, which is used to collect and analyze data from a specific point in time to identify correlations between clinical factors and disease.

Step-by-step explanation:

Based on the description provided, your study design most closely aligns with a cross-sectional observational study. This type of study involves analyzing data from a population at a specific point in time. Since patients recently diagnosed with an infectious disease are being recruited to provide specimens and answer clinical survey questions without follow-up or additional timepoints, it fits the cross-sectional model where the data captured is a 'snapshot' in time, rather than following a group over a period of time like you would in longitudinal or cohort studies. In your study, you are also analyzing the correlation between clinical factors and pathogen load, which is typical for cross-sectional studies where the focus is on determining prevalence and identifying associations rather than on causal relationships.