Title: cross-sectional study
Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - cross-sectional study
DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.15612
Status: current

Definition
Study that examines the relationship between diseases (or other health-related characteristics) and other variables of interest as they exist in a defined population at one particular time.

Note
Disease prevalence rather than incidence is normally recorded in a cross-sectional study and the temporal sequence of cause and effect cannot necessarily be determined.

Related Term
- health: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/15757

Source
- PAC, 2007, 79, 1153. 'Glossary of terms used in toxicology, 2nd edition (IUPAC Recommendations 2007)' on page 1199 (https://doi.org/10.1351/pac200779071153)

Other Outputs
- html: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/15612/html
- json: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/15612/json
- xml: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/15612/xml

Citation: Citation: 'cross-sectional study' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.15612
License: The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms.
Collection: If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org .
Disclaimer: The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using.
Accessed: 2026-05-09T22:57:00+00:00