A nurse designs a project to investigate the use of smokeless tobacco by male graduates from a local high school and their incidence of oral cancer ten years later. This represents what type of study?

• A. Experimental
• B. Prospective
• C. Cross-sectional
• D. Retrospective

Answer: (B)

A prospective cohort design is being used. In this approach, you start with a group of individuals based on their exposure status (ling smokeless tobacco use among male high school graduates) and follow them forward in time to see who develops the outcome of interest (oral cancer) after a defined period (ten years). The key is measuring exposure now and tracking incidence of disease later, without researcher-imposed treatment.

This isn’t experimental because there’s no random assignment or intervention by the researcher. It isn’t cross-sectional because it doesn’t assess exposure and outcome at a single point in time, and it isn’t retrospective because the data are collected forward in time rather than looking back at existing records after the outcome has occurred.