身體活動流行病學研究設計之概述

Foundational concept of research designs in physical activity epidemiology

身體活動流行病學為流行病學中較為新興的學門。近年來，研究指出身體活動對身心健康有諸多效益，其中以流行病學視角來探究身體活動與健康之研究不僅日益趨多，研究設計與研究趨勢也呈現多樣化與跨領域相互整合的模式。這些現象彰顯著當代研究者必須具備不同學門在研究概念與方法的基礎知識，以有效運用於學術論文的閱讀與應用，其重要性可見。據此，本文之目的是以身體活動流行病學的研究設計作為主軸，並在概念與實例上就不同種類的設計作比較與分析，期望提供未來研究者對該學門之研究設計有進一步的認識，並提高未來應用的可能性。

Physical activity epidemiology is a relatively new discipline of epidemiology. Recently, research has suggested that physical activity benefits various aspects of mental and physiological health. Additionally, increasing number of studies has explored the relationship between physical activity and health from the epidemiological perspectives. Furthermore, the research designs and trends employed by these studies were diverse and involved multiple integrated disciplines. These phenomena highlights the importance that, in order to understand and utilize current findings from the academic literature, researchers have to possess basic knowledge about the research designs and concepts from other academic disciplines. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper was to emphasize the experimental designs of physical activity epidemiology; specifically, to compare and analysis studies with different experimental designs in order to provide references for further researchers.