forskningskohorter

Forskningskohorter, or research cohorts, are groups of individuals who share a common characteristic or experience and are studied over time. This characteristic can be an exposure to a specific factor, such as a medication, environmental agent, or lifestyle choice, or it can be a demographic feature like age or birth year. Researchers follow these cohorts to observe the development of diseases, health outcomes, or other phenomena and to identify potential risk factors or protective elements.

There are two main types of research cohorts: prospective and retrospective. Prospective cohorts are formed before the outcomes of interest have occurred. Researchers recruit participants and collect baseline data, then follow them into the future to observe what happens. Retrospective cohorts use historical data to identify individuals who have already experienced a particular exposure and then trace their outcomes up to the present or a defined endpoint.

Cohort studies are valuable for establishing temporal relationships between exposures and outcomes, meaning they can help determine if an exposure preceded a disease. This is crucial for understanding causation. They can also be used to study rare exposures or diseases and to examine multiple outcomes from a single exposure. However, cohort studies can be time-consuming and expensive, especially prospective ones. They are also susceptible to loss to follow-up, where participants drop out of the study, which can introduce bias.