what type of study measures incidence
The measure of disease in cohort studies is the incidence rate, which is the proportion of subjects who develop the disease under study within a specified time period. The numerator of the rate is the number of diseased subjects and the denominator is usually the number of person-years of observation. The incidence rates for exposed and non-exposed subjects are calculated separately. The measure of association between exposure and disease in cohort studies is the relative risk. The relative risk is the ratio of the incidence rate of index subjects to that of control subjects. A relative risk of 1.0 signifies that the incidence rate is the same among exposed and non-exposed subjects and indicates a lack of association between exposure and disease.