This involved collection of biospecimens from the participants, including serum, plasma, mononuclear cells and urine along with conducting questionnaires regarding their lifestyle and medical history. For example, it would be unethical to design an RCT deliberately exposing workers to a potentially harmful situation.To study how genetic factors and environmental factors affect disease risk, two large-scale prospective studies, the Tohoku Medical Megabank Project Community-Based Cohort Study (TMM CommCohort Study) and the Tohoku Medical Megabank Project Birth and Three-Generation Cohort Study (TMM BirThree Cohort Study), are ongoing in Miyagi and Iwate Prefectures in Japan.įrom 2013, the commencement of the cohort studies, till 2017, ToMMo has successfully recruited more than 150,000 participants to undertake the baseline assessment. If cohort studies are second-best, then why use them? They may be the only way to explore certain questions. RCTs, in contrast, are experimental-meaning the researcher manipulates one of the variables (assigns treatments, for example) and determines how this influences the outcome. Cohort studies are observational-meaning the researcher observes what’s happening or naturally occurring, measures variables of interest and draws conclusions. In terms of levels of evidence for establishing relationships between exposure and outcome, cohort studies are considered second to randomized controlled trials (RCTs) because RCTs limit the possibility for biases by randomly assigning one group of participants to an intervention/treatment and another group to non-intervention/treatment or placebo. Weaknesses are that they can be expensive and time-consuming because they can involve large populations and long periods of time. Strengths of a cohort study include the fact that multiple outcomes can be observed. Researchers could use these results to develop a tool to identify readiness for RTW and guidelines surrounding successful RTW. If this were the case, this cohort study could likely tell us that workplace policies play an important role in RTW. It may come to light that the workers who felt their companies were doing well in terms of policies and practices were more likely to be back at work at six months, for example, than those who didn’t. They might be asked about their organization’s policies and practices, and if accommodated work had been offered and accepted. They may be asked if they have returned to work and, if so, if they were able to meet their job demands. At six and 12 months post-injury, the workers could be interviewed about their readiness to RTW. Researchers in such a study could determine what’s affecting the workers’ RTW. Returning to our example, a cohort study could follow a group of injured workers who were off work (and filed musculoskeletal-related claims) and observe when these workers returned to work.
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