Intro: Title and abstract (1)

The items from STROBE state that you should report:
- Indicate the study’s design with a commonly used term in the title or the abstract; AND
- Provide in the abstract, an informative and balanced summary of what was done and what was found (Vandenbroucke et al., 2007)


First and foremost, thoughtful consideration must be given to the title of your work and the abstract. Based on which journal you plan on submitting your work to, they might provide restrictions on how many words you can use, so be as concise and unambiguous as possible. Try to be as objective as possible and frame your findings correctly. Although this is the first item in the checklist, some people find that it is the easiest to write these at or near the end of your work as it contains the key messages that you want to focus on.


Some key items to consider adding:
- The study design (e.g., cohort, cross-sectional, case-control).
- Information about the data source (e.g., bibliometric, patient registry, etc.)
- Information about the timing of data collection (e.g., longitudinal, date ranges)
- The main results (e.g., “found high rates of x”, " )


Explanation 1a

Readers should be able to easily identify the design that was used from the title or abstract. An explicit, commonly used term for the study design also helps ensure correct indexing of articles in electronic databases.(Benson & Hartz, 2000; Vandenbroucke et al., 2007)


Examples 1a

  • “Leukemia incidence among workers in the shoe and boot manufacturing industry: a case-control study” (Forand, 2004; Vandenbroucke et al., 2007)
  • “The consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages was derived from 7 repeated FFQs administered between 1980 and 2002” (Fung et al., 2009; Hornell et al., 2017; Vandenbroucke et al., 2007)
  • “Key finding/exposures” among/in “sample/population” during “time period of study/data collection” : “study design”
  • “Study design” investigating “exposures” among “sample/population” during “time period of study/data collection” found “key findings”


Explanation 1b

The abstract provides key information that enables readers to understand a study and decide whether to read the article. Typical components include a statement of the research question, a short description of methods and results, and a conclusion (American Journal of Epidemiology, 2007). Abstracts should summarize key details of studies and should only present information that is provided in the article. We advise presenting key results in a numerical form that includes numbers of participants, estimates of associations and appropriate measures of variability and uncertainty (e.g., odds ratios with confidence intervals). We regard it insufficient to state only that an exposure is or is not significantly associated with an outcome.
A series of headings pertaining to the background, design, conduct, and analysis of a study may help readers acquire the essential information rapidly (Haynes, 1990). Many journals require such structured abstracts, which tend to be of higher quality and more readily informative than unstructured summaries (Hartley & Sydes, 1996; Taddio et al., 1994; Vandenbroucke et al., 2007).


Example 1b

  • Background: The expected survival of HIV-infected patients is of major public health interest.
    Objective: To estimate survival time and age-specific mortality rates of an HIV-infected population compared with that of the general population.
    Design: Population-based cohort study.
    Setting: All HIV-infected persons receiving care in Denmark from 1995 to 2005.
    Patients: Each member of the nationwide Danish HIV Cohort Study was matched with as many as 99 persons from the general population according to sex, date of birth, and municipality of residence.
    Measurements: The authors computed Kaplan–Meier life tables with age as the time scale to estimate survival from age 25 years. Patients with HIV infection and corresponding persons from the general population were observed from the date of the patient’s HIV diagnosis until death, emigration, or 1 May 2005.
    Results: 3990 HIV-infected patients and 379 872 persons from the general population were included in the study, yielding 22 744 (median, 5.8 y/person) and 2 689 287 (median, 8.4 years/person) person-years of observation. Three percent of participants were lost to follow-up. From age 25 years, the median survival was 19.9 years (95% CI, 18.5 to 21.3) among patients with HIV infection and 51.1 years (CI, 50.9 to 51.5) among the general population. For HIV-infected patients, survival increased to 32.5 years (CI, 29.4 to 34.7) during the 2000 to 2005 period. In the subgroup that excluded persons with known hepatitis C coinfection (16%), median survival was 38.9 years (CI, 35.4 to 40.1) during this same period. The relative mortality rates for patients with HIV infection compared with those for the general population decreased with increasing age, whereas the excess mortality rate increased with increasing age.
    Limitations: The observed mortality rates are assumed to apply beyond the current maximum observation time of 10 years.
    Conclusions: The estimated median survival is more than 35 years for a young person diagnosed with HIV infection in the late highly active antiretroviral therapy era. However, an ongoing effort is still needed to further reduce mortality rates for these persons compared with the general population (Lohse et al., 2007; Vandenbroucke et al., 2007)


Field-specific guidance

Infectious disease molecular epidemiology (Field et al., 2014)
- The term molecular epidemiology should be applied to the study in the title or abstract and the keywords when molecular and epidemiological methods contribute substantially to the study

Molecular epidemiology (Gallo et al., 2012)
- State the use of specific biomarker(s) in the title and ⁄or in the abstract if they contribute substantially to the findings

Nutritional data (Lachat et al., 2016)
- State the dietary/nutritional assessment method(s) used in the title, abstract, or keywords

Response-driven sampling (White et al., 2015)
- Indicate “respondent-driven sampling” in the title or abstract

Routinely collected health data (Benchimol et al., 2015)
- The type of data used should be specified in the title or abstract. When possible, the name of the databases used should be included
- If applicable, the geographic region and time frame within which the study took place should be reported in the title or abstract
- If linkage between databases was conducted for the study, this should be clearly stated in the title or abstract

Seroepidemiologic studies for influenza (Horby et al., 2017)
- The term “seroepidemiologic,” “seroepidemiology,” “seroprevalence,” or “seroincidence” should be applied to the study in the title or abstract, and the medical subject heading “Seroepidemiologic Studies” be used when the report is of a population-based serological survey

Simulation-based research (Cheng et al., 2016)
- In abstract or key terms, the MESH or searchable keyword term must have the word simulation or simulated

Resources

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References

American Journal of Epidemiology. (2007). Information for Authors. In Oxford Academic. http://www.oxfordjournals.org/aje/for_authors/index.html

Benchimol, E. I., Smeeth, L., Guttmann, A., Harron, K., Moher, D., Petersen, I., Sorensen, H. T., Elm, E. von, Langan, S. M., & Committee, R. W. (2015). The REporting of studies Conducted using Observational Routinely-collected health Data (RECORD) Statement. PLOS Medicine, 12(10), e1001885. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001885

Benson, K., & Hartz, A. J. (2000). A Comparison of Observational Studies and Randomized, Controlled Trials. New England Journal of Medicine, 342(25), 1878–1886. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJM200006223422506

Cheng, A., Kessler, D., Mackinnon, R., Chang, T. P., Nadkarni, V. M., Hunt, E. A., Duval-Arnould, J., Lin, Y., Cook, D. A., Pusic, M., Hui, J., Moher, D., Egger, M., & Auerbach, M. (2016). Reporting guidelines for health care simulation research: Extensions to the CONSORT and STROBE statements. Advances in Simulation, 1, 25. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41077-016-0025-y

Field, N., Cohen, T., Struelens, M. J., Palm, D., Cookson, B., Glynn, J. R., Gallo, V., Ramsay, M., Sonnenberg, P., MacCannell, D., Charlett, A., Egger, M., Green, J., Vineis, P., & Abubakar, I. (2014). Strengthening the Reporting of Molecular Epidemiology for Infectious Diseases (STROME-ID): An extension of the STROBE statement. The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 14(4), 341–352. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(13)70324-4

Forand, S. P. (2004). Leukaemia incidence among workers in the shoe and boot manufacturing industry: A case-control study. Environmental Health, 3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15339334

Fung, T. T., Malik, V., Rexrode, K. M., Manson, J. E., Willett, W. C., & Hu, F. B. (2009). Sweetened beverage consumption and risk of coronary heart disease in women. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 89(4), 1037–1042. https://doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.2008.27140

Gallo, V., Egger, M., McCormack, V., Farmer, P. B., Ioannidis, J. P. A., Kirsch-Volders, M., Matullo, G., Phillips, D. H., Schoket, B., Stromberg, U., Vermeulen, R., Wild, C., Porta, M., & Vineis, P. (2012). STrengthening the Reporting of OBservational studies in Epidemiology Molecular Epidemiology (STROBE-ME): An extension of the STROBE statement. European Journal of Clinical Investigation, 42(1), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2362.2011.02561.x

Hartley, J., & Sydes, M. (1996). Which layout do you prefer? An analysis of readers’ preferences for different typographic layouts of structured abstracts. Journal of Information Science, 22(1), 27–37. https://doi.org/10.1177/016555159602200103

Haynes, R. B. (1990). More Informative Abstracts Revisited. Annals of Internal Medicine, 113(1), 69. https://doi.org/10.7326/0003-4819-113-1-69

Horby, P. W., Laurie, K. L., Cowling, B. J., Engelhardt, O. G., Sturm-Ramirez, K., Sanchez, J. L., Katz, J. M., Uyeki, T. M., Wood, J., Van Kerkhove, M. D., & the CONSISE Steering Committee. (2017). CONSISE statement on the reporting of Seroepidemiologic Studies for influenza (ROSES-I statement): An extension of the STROBE statement. Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses, 11(1), 2–14. https://doi.org/10.1111/irv.12411

Hornell, A., Berg, C., Forsum, E., Larsson, C., Sonestedt, E., Åkesson, A., Lachat, C., Hawwash, D., Kolsteren, P., Byrnes, G., Keyzer, W. D., Camp, J. V., Cade, J. E., Greenwood, D. C., Slimani, N., Cevallos, M., Egger, M., Huybrechts, I., & Wirfält, E. (2017). Perspective: An Extension of the STROBE Statement for Observational Studies in Nutritional Epidemiology (STROBE-nut): Explanation and Elaboration. Advances in Nutrition: An International Review Journal, 8(5), 652–678. https://doi.org/10.3945/an.117.015941

Lachat, C., Hawwash, D., Ocké, M. C., Berg, C., Forsum, E., Hörnell, A., Larsson, C., Sonestedt, E., Wirfält, E., Åkesson, A., Kolsteren, P., Byrnes, G., De Keyzer, W., Van Camp, J., Cade, J. E., Slimani, N., Cevallos, M., Egger, M., & Huybrechts, I. (2016). Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology—Nutritional Epidemiology (STROBE-nut): An Extension of the STROBE Statement. PLOS Medicine, 13(6), e1002036. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002036

Lohse, N., Hansen, A.-B. E., Pedersen, G., Kronborg, G., Gerstoft, J., Sørensen, H. T., Væth, M., & Obel, N. (2007). Survival of Persons with and without HIV Infection in Denmark, 1995–2005. Annals of Internal Medicine, 146(2), 87. https://doi.org/10.7326/0003-4819-146-2-200701160-00003

Taddio, A., Pain, T., Fassos, F. F., Boon, H., Ilersich, A. L., & Einarson, T. R. (1994). Quality of nonstructured and structured abstracts of original research articles in the British Medical Journal, the Canadian Medical Association Journal and the Journal of the American Medical Association. CMAJ: Canadian Medical Association Journal, 150(10), 1611–1615. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1336964/

Vandenbroucke, J. P., Elm, E. von, Altman, D. G., Gotzsche, P. C., Mulrow, C. D., Pocock, S. J., Poole, C., Schlesselman, J. J., & Egger, M. (2007). Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE): Explanation and Elaboration. Epidemiology, 18(6), 805–835. https://doi.org/10.1097/EDE.0b013e3181577511

White, R. G., Hakim, A. J., Salganik, M. J., Spiller, M. W., Johnston, L. G., Kerr, L., Kendall, C., Drake, A., Wilson, D., Orroth, K., Egger, M., & Hladik, W. (2015). Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology for respondent-driven sampling studies: "STROBE-RDS" statement. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 68(12), 1463–1471. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2015.04.002