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Panel studies need not be multiyear designs. Wutich (2009) combined participant observation with a five-wave panel survey in a study of common pool water institutions in Cochabamba, Bolivia. The panel design consisted of a household survey (N = 72) in which Wutich and her assistants interviewed households every two months for 10 months. This design – spanning two wet seasons and one dry – made it possible to examine seasonal variability in climate and water security in a way that would not have been possible with a cross-sectional study.

Case-control studies (Figure 4.4) are relatively rare in anthropology, although they are among the most common designs in epidemiology. The classic example in medical anthropology is Rubel and colleagues’ (1984) study of susto, a folk illness reported in many parts of Latin America. Based on ethnographic accounts, Rubel et al. developed specific hypotheses about the sociocultural factors that shape susceptibility to susto. To test these hypotheses, they compared a sample of people who suffered from susto (cases) with people who did not (controls) in three communities with different histories, language, and cultures in the Oaxaca Valley of Mexico (Zapotec, Chinantec, and mestizo).