Obstacles to conducting epidemiological research in the UK general population

Abstract
Case-control studies are a powerful epidemiological method for identifying risk factors for disease. They are generally complex to design and execute. However, the difficulties of conducting such studies have been substantially increased by concerns about confidentiality and access to medical records. These barriers could be deleterious to the public's health. In this article, we report some of the problems we faced in conducting a national case-control study of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.