Analytic strategies in hospital epidemiology: cross-sectional studies

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.