(Image: EBM Pyramid and EBM Page Generator, copyright 2006 Trustees of Dartmouth College and Yale University. All Rights Reserved.
Produced by Jan Glover, David Izzo, Karen Odato and Lei Wang.)
​Study designs are placed into a hierarchy based on their reliability (probability of bias) known as the Levels of Evidence.
The Levels of Evidence are often represented by a pyramid, with the highest levels of evidence (least common) near the top, and the lowest levels of evidence (most common) near the bottom. The pyramid above is based on the Oxford Centre for Evidence Based Medicine's rating system for therapeutic studies, but a variety of rating systems exist.