cohort study

Definition of Cohort Study

(noun) A study that follows a group of people (cohort) with a similar characteristic such as age.

Examples of Cohort Study

• A study investigating attitudes towards same-sex marriage among baby boomers.
• The Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study of New Zealand.

Cohort Study Pronunciation

Pronunciation Usage Guide

Syllabification: co·hort stud·y

Audio Pronunciation

International Phonetic Alphabet

• American English – /ˈkoʊhɔrt ˈstʌdi/
• British English – /ˈkəʊhɔːt ˈstʌdi/

Usage Notes

• Plural: cohort studies
• A retrospective cohort study examines existing data and a prospective cohort study examines data for a predefined span of time.
• A cohort study can investigate cohort effects or a specific generation in a family.
• A cohort study is longitudinal and does not require the same sample for each observation.

Additional Information

• Qualitative Research Resources – Books, Journals, and Helpful Links
• Quantitative Research Resources – Books, Journals, and Helpful Links
• Word origin of “cohort” and “study” – Online Etymology Dictionary: etymonline.com

Related Terms

• cohort
• cohort effect
• data
• demography
• hypothesis
• reliability
• statistics
• status
• study
• systematic
• theory

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Works Consulted

Burdess, Neil. 2010. Starting Statistics: A Short, Clear Guide. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Cramer, Duncan, and Dennis Howitt. 2004. The SAGE Dictionary of Statistics: A Practical Resource for Students in the Social Sciences. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Farlex. (N.d.) TheFreeDictionary.com: Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus. Farlex. (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/).

Fioramonti, Lorenzo. 2014. How Numbers Rule the World: The Use and Abuse of Statistics in Global Politics. London: Zed Books.

Larson, Ron, and Elizabeth Farber. 2015. Elementary Statistics: Picturing the World. 6th ed. Boston: Pearson.

Oxford University Press. (N.d.) Oxford Dictionaries. (https://www.oxforddictionaries.com/).

Salkind, Neil J., ed. 2007. Encyclopedia of Measurement and Statistics. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Taylor & Francis. (N.d.) Routledge Handbooks Online. (https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/).

Weinstein, Jay A. 2010. Applying Social Statistics: An Introduction to Quantitative Reasoning in Sociology. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Wikipedia contributors. (N.d.) Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation. (https://en.wikipedia.org/).

Wikipedia contributors. (N.d.) Wiktionary, The Free Dictionary. Wikimedia Foundation. (http://en.wiktionary.org).

Wiley. (N.d.) Wiley Online Library. (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/).

Cite the Definition of Cohort Study

ASA – American Sociological Association (5th edition)

Bell, Kenton, ed. 2014. “cohort study.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Retrieved April 18, 2024 (https://sociologydictionary.org/cohort-study/).

APA – American Psychological Association (6th edition)

cohort study. (2014). In K. Bell (Ed.), Open education sociology dictionary. Retrieved from https://sociologydictionary.org/cohort-study/

Chicago/Turabian: Author-Date – Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition)

Bell, Kenton, ed. 2014. “cohort study.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Accessed April 18, 2024. https://sociologydictionary.org/cohort-study/.

MLA – Modern Language Association (7th edition)

“cohort study.” Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Ed. Kenton Bell. 2014. Web. 18 Apr. 2024. <https://sociologydictionary.org/cohort-study/>.