How to improve the quality of a Cross-sectional study design to determine the relationship between an exposure and an outcome?

I do believe that this falls under medical research and that's not my area of expertise.I do apologize note being able to help in this instance.

The relationship of an attribute to the disease is examined by comparing the diseased and nondiseased with regard to how frequently the attribute is present or, if quantitative the levels of the attribute in each of the groups, A dictionary of epidemiology. 2nd edition, NY, Oxford 1988 Synonyms: case comparison study, case compeer study, case history study, case referent study, retrospective study Defining characteristic Subjects are selected on the basis of the outcome variable. Key advantages Statistically efficient for rare conditions Logistically efficient for prolonged induction or latency diseases Can examine many exposures in one study Ethical cannot affect onset of disease Basic procedure 1. Identify cases determine their characteristics cases estimate the prevalence of the exposure in people who get the disease. 2. Select controls (noncases), determine their characteristics - controls estimate the prevalence of the exposure in people who have not developed the disease. 3. Compare the characteristics of cases with characteristics of noncases. 4.Draw inferences about the underlying processes that led to differences in characteristics of cases and controls. Odds ratio (OR = odds of exposure in cases/odds of exposure in controls) estimates the incidence density ratio (IDR = rate of disease in exposed persons/rate of disease in unexposed persons). For rare disease, IDR closely approximates cumulative incidence ratio (CIR, RR) of the disease for that exposure.