Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) in the International Journal of Medical Students

Observational studies are the foundation of all biomedical and clinical research.1 While clinical trials and meta-analyses offer the highest levels of evidence and are therefore considered the gold standards of human research, experimental studies would be hardly possible without any evidence from the hypothesis-generating observational studies. It is by the help of well-conducted epidemiological studies that scientists can informpublic health decisions and clinical practice guidelines.