•Is an epidemiological approach appropriate to the problem under study? What alternative methods would also help to resolve the problem?
•What is the study design and is it suitable for the problem addressed?
•Are the date or time period over which data were collected given?
•For conditions which have a cyclical pattern, has the timing of measurements been stated? For example, for blood pressure the timing needed may be time of day, time of week, month, and season.
•Have the precise geographical boundaries of the study been given? If this is not a geographically defined population, can the sample population be related to a place?
•Have the populations been defined in terms of their social and economic standinp. ftnH
•Is the study sample representative of a larger population and, hence, are the results likely to be more widely generalizable?
•Are the sampling and measurement methods equivalent in the groups to be compared?
•Are compared populations of subgroups similar on key variables?