case study fact sheet

How to Write a Case Study: Bookmarkable Guide & Template

Published: November 30, 2023

Earning the trust of prospective customers can be a struggle. Before you can even begin to expect to earn their business, you need to demonstrate your ability to deliver on what your product or service promises.

Sure, you could say that you're great at X or that you're way ahead of the competition when it comes to Y. But at the end of the day, what you really need to win new business is cold, hard proof.

One of the best ways to prove your worth is through a compelling case study. In fact, HubSpot’s 2020 State of Marketing report found that case studies are so compelling that they are the fifth most commonly used type of content used by marketers.

Below, I'll walk you through what a case study is, how to prepare for writing one, what you need to include in it, and how it can be an effective tactic. To jump to different areas of this post, click on the links below to automatically scroll.

Case Study Definition

Case study templates, how to write a case study.

• How to Format a Case Study

Business Case Study Examples

A case study is a specific challenge a business has faced, and the solution they've chosen to solve it. Case studies can vary greatly in length and focus on several details related to the initial challenge and applied solution, and can be presented in various forms like a video, white paper, blog post, etc.

In professional settings, it's common for a case study to tell the story of a successful business partnership between a vendor and a client. Perhaps the success you're highlighting is in the number of leads your client generated, customers closed, or revenue gained. Any one of these key performance indicators (KPIs) are examples of your company's services in action.

When done correctly, these examples of your work can chronicle the positive impact your business has on existing or previous customers and help you attract new clients.

Free Case Study Templates

Showcase your company's success using these three free case study templates.

• Data-Driven Case Study Template
• Product-Specific Case Study Template
• General Case Study Template

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Why write a case study? 

I know, you’re thinking “ Okay, but why do I need to write one of these? ” The truth is that while case studies are a huge undertaking, they are powerful marketing tools that allow you to demonstrate the value of your product to potential customers using real-world examples. Here are a few reasons why you should write case studies. 

1. Explain Complex Topics or Concepts

Case studies give you the space to break down complex concepts, ideas, and strategies and show how they can be applied in a practical way. You can use real-world examples, like an existing client, and use their story to create a compelling narrative that shows how your product solved their issue and how those strategies can be repeated to help other customers get similar successful results.  

2. Show Expertise

Case studies are a great way to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise on a given topic or industry. This is where you get the opportunity to show off your problem-solving skills and how you’ve generated successful outcomes for clients you’ve worked with. 

3. Build Trust and Credibility

In addition to showing off the attributes above, case studies are an excellent way to build credibility. They’re often filled with data and thoroughly researched, which shows readers you’ve done your homework. They can have confidence in the solutions you’ve presented because they’ve read through as you’ve explained the problem and outlined step-by-step what it took to solve it. All of these elements working together enable you to build trust with potential customers.

4. Create Social Proof

Using existing clients that have seen success working with your brand builds social proof . People are more likely to choose your brand if they know that others have found success working with you. Case studies do just that — putting your success on display for potential customers to see. 

All of these attributes work together to help you gain more clients. Plus you can even use quotes from customers featured in these studies and repurpose them in other marketing content. Now that you know more about the benefits of producing a case study, let’s check out how long these documents should be. 

How long should a case study be?

The length of a case study will vary depending on the complexity of the project or topic discussed. However, as a general guideline, case studies typically range from 500 to 1,500 words. 

Whatever length you choose, it should provide a clear understanding of the challenge, the solution you implemented, and the results achieved. This may be easier said than done, but it's important to strike a balance between providing enough detail to make the case study informative and concise enough to keep the reader's interest.

The primary goal here is to effectively communicate the key points and takeaways of the case study. It’s worth noting that this shouldn’t be a wall of text. Use headings, subheadings, bullet points, charts, and other graphics to break up the content and make it more scannable for readers. We’ve also seen brands incorporate video elements into case studies listed on their site for a more engaging experience. 

Ultimately, the length of your case study should be determined by the amount of information necessary to convey the story and its impact without becoming too long. Next, let’s look at some templates to take the guesswork out of creating one. 

To help you arm your prospects with information they can trust, we've put together a step-by-step guide on how to create effective case studies for your business with free case study templates for creating your own.

Tell us a little about yourself below to gain access today:

And to give you more options, we’ll highlight some useful templates that serve different needs. But remember, there are endless possibilities when it comes to demonstrating the work your business has done.

1. General Case Study Template

Do you have a specific product or service that you’re trying to sell, but not enough reviews or success stories? This Product Specific case study template will help.

This template relies less on metrics, and more on highlighting the customer’s experience and satisfaction. As you follow the template instructions, you’ll be prompted to speak more about the benefits of the specific product, rather than your team’s process for working with the customer.

4. Bold Social Media Business Case Study Template

You can find templates that represent different niches, industries, or strategies that your business has found success in — like a bold social media business case study template.

In this template, you can tell the story of how your social media marketing strategy has helped you or your client through collaboration or sale of your service. Customize it to reflect the different marketing channels used in your business and show off how well your business has been able to boost traffic, engagement, follows, and more.

5. Lead Generation Business Case Study Template

It’s important to note that not every case study has to be the product of a sale or customer story, sometimes they can be informative lessons that your own business has experienced. A great example of this is the Lead Generation Business case study template.

If you’re looking to share operational successes regarding how your team has improved processes or content, you should include the stories of different team members involved, how the solution was found, and how it has made a difference in the work your business does.

Now that we’ve discussed different templates and ideas for how to use them, let’s break down how to create your own case study with one.

• Get started with case study templates.
• Determine the case study's objective.
• Establish a case study medium.
• Find the right case study candidate.
• Contact your candidate for permission to write about them.
• Ensure you have all the resources you need to proceed once you get a response.
• Download a case study email template.
• Define the process you want to follow with the client.
• Ensure you're asking the right questions.
• Layout your case study format.
• Publish and promote your case study.

1. Get started with case study templates.

Telling your customer's story is a delicate process — you need to highlight their success while naturally incorporating your business into their story.

If you're just getting started with case studies, we recommend you download HubSpot's Case Study Templates we mentioned before to kickstart the process.

2. Determine the case study's objective.

All business case studies are designed to demonstrate the value of your services, but they can focus on several different client objectives.

Your first step when writing a case study is to determine the objective or goal of the subject you're featuring. In other words, what will the client have succeeded in doing by the end of the piece?

The client objective you focus on will depend on what you want to prove to your future customers as a result of publishing this case study.

Your case study can focus on one of the following client objectives:

• Complying with government regulation
• Lowering business costs
• Becoming profitable
• Generating more leads
• Closing on more customers
• Generating more revenue
• Expanding into a new market
• Becoming more sustainable or energy-efficient

3. Establish a case study medium.

Next, you'll determine the medium in which you'll create the case study. In other words, how will you tell this story?

Case studies don't have to be simple, written one-pagers. Using different media in your case study can allow you to promote your final piece on different channels. For example, while a written case study might just live on your website and get featured in a Facebook post, you can post an infographic case study on Pinterest and a video case study on your YouTube channel.

Here are some different case study mediums to consider:

Written Case Study

Consider writing this case study in the form of an ebook and converting it to a downloadable PDF. Then, gate the PDF behind a landing page and form for readers to fill out before downloading the piece, allowing this case study to generate leads for your business.

Video Case Study

Plan on meeting with the client and shooting an interview. Seeing the subject, in person, talk about the service you provided them can go a long way in the eyes of your potential customers.

Infographic Case Study

Use the long, vertical format of an infographic to tell your success story from top to bottom. As you progress down the infographic, emphasize major KPIs using bigger text and charts that show the successes your client has had since working with you.

Podcast Case Study

Podcasts are a platform for you to have a candid conversation with your client. This type of case study can sound more real and human to your audience — they'll know the partnership between you and your client was a genuine success.

4. Find the right case study candidate.

Writing about your previous projects requires more than picking a client and telling a story. You need permission, quotes, and a plan. To start, here are a few things to look for in potential candidates.

Product Knowledge

It helps to select a customer who's well-versed in the logistics of your product or service. That way, he or she can better speak to the value of what you offer in a way that makes sense for future customers.

Remarkable Results

Clients that have seen the best results are going to make the strongest case studies. If their own businesses have seen an exemplary ROI from your product or service, they're more likely to convey the enthusiasm that you want prospects to feel, too.

One part of this step is to choose clients who have experienced unexpected success from your product or service. When you've provided non-traditional customers — in industries that you don't usually work with, for example — with positive results, it can help to remove doubts from prospects.

Recognizable Names

While small companies can have powerful stories, bigger or more notable brands tend to lend credibility to your own. In fact, 89% of consumers say they'll buy from a brand they already recognize over a competitor, especially if they already follow them on social media.

Customers that came to you after working with a competitor help highlight your competitive advantage and might even sway decisions in your favor.

5. Contact your candidate for permission to write about them.

To get the case study candidate involved, you have to set the stage for clear and open communication. That means outlining expectations and a timeline right away — not having those is one of the biggest culprits in delayed case study creation.

Most importantly at this point, however, is getting your subject's approval. When first reaching out to your case study candidate, provide them with the case study's objective and format — both of which you will have come up with in the first two steps above.

To get this initial permission from your subject, put yourself in their shoes — what would they want out of this case study? Although you're writing this for your own company's benefit, your subject is far more interested in the benefit it has for them.

Benefits to Offer Your Case Study Candidate

Here are four potential benefits you can promise your case study candidate to gain their approval.

Brand Exposure

Explain to your subject to whom this case study will be exposed, and how this exposure can help increase their brand awareness both in and beyond their own industry. In the B2B sector, brand awareness can be hard to collect outside one's own market, making case studies particularly useful to a client looking to expand their name's reach.

Employee Exposure

Allow your subject to provide quotes with credits back to specific employees. When this is an option for them, their brand isn't the only thing expanding its reach — their employees can get their name out there, too. This presents your subject with networking and career development opportunities they might not have otherwise.

Product Discount

This is a more tangible incentive you can offer your case study candidate, especially if they're a current customer of yours. If they agree to be your subject, offer them a product discount — or a free trial of another product — as a thank-you for their help creating your case study.

Backlinks and Website Traffic

Here's a benefit that is sure to resonate with your subject's marketing team: If you publish your case study on your website, and your study links back to your subject's website — known as a "backlink" — this small gesture can give them website traffic from visitors who click through to your subject's website.

Additionally, a backlink from you increases your subject's page authority in the eyes of Google. This helps them rank more highly in search engine results and collect traffic from readers who are already looking for information about their industry.

6. Ensure you have all the resources you need to proceed once you get a response.

So you know what you’re going to offer your candidate, it’s time that you prepare the resources needed for if and when they agree to participate, like a case study release form and success story letter.

Let's break those two down.

Case Study Release Form

This document can vary, depending on factors like the size of your business, the nature of your work, and what you intend to do with the case studies once they are completed. That said, you should typically aim to include the following in the Case Study Release Form:

• A clear explanation of why you are creating this case study and how it will be used.
• A statement defining the information and potentially trademarked information you expect to include about the company — things like names, logos, job titles, and pictures.
• An explanation of what you expect from the participant, beyond the completion of the case study. For example, is this customer willing to act as a reference or share feedback, and do you have permission to pass contact information along for these purposes?
• A note about compensation.

Success Story Letter

As noted in the sample email, this document serves as an outline for the entire case study process. Other than a brief explanation of how the customer will benefit from case study participation, you'll want to be sure to define the following steps in the Success Story Letter.

7. Download a case study email template.

While you gathered your resources, your candidate has gotten time to read over the proposal. When your candidate approves of your case study, it's time to send them a release form.

A case study release form tells you what you'll need from your chosen subject, like permission to use any brand names and share the project information publicly. Kick-off this process with an email that runs through exactly what they can expect from you, as well as what you need from them. To give you an idea of what that might look like, check out this sample email:

8. Define the process you want to follow with the client.

Before you can begin the case study, you have to have a clear outline of the case study process with your client. An example of an effective outline would include the following information.

The Acceptance

First, you'll need to receive internal approval from the company's marketing team. Once approved, the Release Form should be signed and returned to you. It's also a good time to determine a timeline that meets the needs and capabilities of both teams.

The Questionnaire

To ensure that you have a productive interview — which is one of the best ways to collect information for the case study — you'll want to ask the participant to complete a questionnaire before this conversation. That will provide your team with the necessary foundation to organize the interview, and get the most out of it.

The Interview

Once the questionnaire is completed, someone on your team should reach out to the participant to schedule a 30- to 60-minute interview, which should include a series of custom questions related to the customer's experience with your product or service.

The Draft Review

After the case study is composed, you'll want to send a draft to the customer, allowing an opportunity to give you feedback and edits.

The Final Approval

Once any necessary edits are completed, send a revised copy of the case study to the customer for final approval.

Once the case study goes live — on your website or elsewhere — it's best to contact the customer with a link to the page where the case study lives. Don't be afraid to ask your participants to share these links with their own networks, as it not only demonstrates your ability to deliver positive results and impressive growth, as well.

9. Ensure you're asking the right questions.

Before you execute the questionnaire and actual interview, make sure you're setting yourself up for success. A strong case study results from being prepared to ask the right questions. What do those look like? Here are a few examples to get you started:

• What are your goals?
• What challenges were you experiencing before purchasing our product or service?
• What made our product or service stand out against our competitors?
• What did your decision-making process look like?
• How have you benefited from using our product or service? (Where applicable, always ask for data.)

Keep in mind that the questionnaire is designed to help you gain insights into what sort of strong, success-focused questions to ask during the actual interview. And once you get to that stage, we recommend that you follow the "Golden Rule of Interviewing." Sounds fancy, right? It's actually quite simple — ask open-ended questions.

If you're looking to craft a compelling story, "yes" or "no" answers won't provide the details you need. Focus on questions that invite elaboration, such as, "Can you describe ...?" or, "Tell me about ..."

In terms of the interview structure, we recommend categorizing the questions and flowing them into six specific sections that will mirror a successful case study format. Combined, they'll allow you to gather enough information to put together a rich, comprehensive study.

Open with the customer's business.

The goal of this section is to generate a better understanding of the company's current challenges and goals, and how they fit into the landscape of their industry. Sample questions might include:

• How long have you been in business?
• How many employees do you have?
• What are some of the objectives of your department at this time?

Cite a problem or pain point.

To tell a compelling story, you need context. That helps match the customer's need with your solution. Sample questions might include:

• What challenges and objectives led you to look for a solution?
• What might have happened if you did not identify a solution?
• Did you explore other solutions before this that did not work out? If so, what happened?

Discuss the decision process.

Exploring how the customer decided to work with you helps to guide potential customers through their own decision-making processes. Sample questions might include:

• How did you hear about our product or service?
• Who was involved in the selection process?
• What was most important to you when evaluating your options?

Explain how a solution was implemented.

The focus here should be placed on the customer's experience during the onboarding process. Sample questions might include:

• How long did it take to get up and running?
• Did that meet your expectations?
• Who was involved in the process?

Explain how the solution works.

The goal of this section is to better understand how the customer is using your product or service. Sample questions might include:

• Is there a particular aspect of the product or service that you rely on most?
• Who is using the product or service?

End with the results.

In this section, you want to uncover impressive measurable outcomes — the more numbers, the better. Sample questions might include:

• How is the product or service helping you save time and increase productivity?
• In what ways does that enhance your competitive advantage?
• How much have you increased metrics X, Y, and Z?

10. Lay out your case study format.

When it comes time to take all of the information you've collected and actually turn it into something, it's easy to feel overwhelmed. Where should you start? What should you include? What's the best way to structure it?

To help you get a handle on this step, it's important to first understand that there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to the ways you can present a case study. They can be very visual, which you'll see in some of the examples we've included below, and can sometimes be communicated mostly through video or photos, with a bit of accompanying text.

Here are the sections we suggest, which we'll cover in more detail down below:

• Title: Keep it short. Develop a succinct but interesting project name you can give the work you did with your subject.
• Subtitle: Use this copy to briefly elaborate on the accomplishment. What was done? The case study itself will explain how you got there.
• Executive Summary : A 2-4 sentence summary of the entire story. You'll want to follow it with 2-3 bullet points that display metrics showcasing success.
• About the Subject: An introduction to the person or company you served, which can be pulled from a LinkedIn Business profile or client website.
• Challenges and Objectives: A 2-3 paragraph description of the customer's challenges, before using your product or service. This section should also include the goals or objectives the customer set out to achieve.
• How Product/Service Helped: A 2-3 paragraph section that describes how your product or service provided a solution to their problem.
• Results: A 2-3 paragraph testimonial that proves how your product or service specifically benefited the person or company and helped achieve its goals. Include numbers to quantify your contributions.
• Supporting Visuals or Quotes: Pick one or two powerful quotes that you would feature at the bottom of the sections above, as well as a visual that supports the story you are telling.
• Future Plans: Everyone likes an epilogue. Comment on what's ahead for your case study subject, whether or not those plans involve you.
• Call to Action (CTA): Not every case study needs a CTA, but putting a passive one at the end of your case study can encourage your readers to take an action on your website after learning about the work you've done.

When laying out your case study, focus on conveying the information you've gathered in the most clear and concise way possible. Make it easy to scan and comprehend, and be sure to provide an attractive call-to-action at the bottom — that should provide readers an opportunity to learn more about your product or service.

11. Publish and promote your case study.

Once you've completed your case study, it's time to publish and promote it. Some case study formats have pretty obvious promotional outlets — a video case study can go on YouTube, just as an infographic case study can go on Pinterest.

But there are still other ways to publish and promote your case study. Here are a couple of ideas:

Lead Gen in a Blog Post

As stated earlier in this article, written case studies make terrific lead-generators if you convert them into a downloadable format, like a PDF. To generate leads from your case study, consider writing a blog post that tells an abbreviated story of your client's success and asking readers to fill out a form with their name and email address if they'd like to read the rest in your PDF.

Then, promote this blog post on social media, through a Facebook post or a tweet.

Published as a Page on Your Website

As a growing business, you might need to display your case study out in the open to gain the trust of your target audience.

Rather than gating it behind a landing page, publish your case study to its own page on your website, and direct people here from your homepage with a "Case Studies" or "Testimonials" button along your homepage's top navigation bar.

Format for a Case Study

The traditional case study format includes the following parts: a title and subtitle, a client profile, a summary of the customer’s challenges and objectives, an account of how your solution helped, and a description of the results. You might also want to include supporting visuals and quotes, future plans, and calls-to-action.

Image Source

The title is one of the most important parts of your case study. It should draw readers in while succinctly describing the potential benefits of working with your company. To that end, your title should:

• State the name of your custome r. Right away, the reader must learn which company used your products and services. This is especially important if your customer has a recognizable brand. If you work with individuals and not companies, you may omit the name and go with professional titles: “A Marketer…”, “A CFO…”, and so forth.
• State which product your customer used . Even if you only offer one product or service, or if your company name is the same as your product name, you should still include the name of your solution. That way, readers who are not familiar with your business can become aware of what you sell.
• Allude to the results achieved . You don’t necessarily need to provide hard numbers, but the title needs to represent the benefits, quickly. That way, if a reader doesn’t stay to read, they can walk away with the most essential information: Your product works.

The example above, “Crunch Fitness Increases Leads and Signups With HubSpot,” achieves all three — without being wordy. Keeping your title short and sweet is also essential.

2. Subtitle

Your subtitle is another essential part of your case study — don’t skip it, even if you think you’ve done the work with the title. In this section, include a brief summary of the challenges your customer was facing before they began to use your products and services. Then, drive the point home by reiterating the benefits your customer experienced by working with you.

The above example reads:

“Crunch Fitness was franchising rapidly when COVID-19 forced fitness clubs around the world to close their doors. But the company stayed agile by using HubSpot to increase leads and free trial signups.”

We like that the case study team expressed the urgency of the problem — opening more locations in the midst of a pandemic — and placed the focus on the customer’s ability to stay agile.

3. Executive Summary

The executive summary should provide a snapshot of your customer, their challenges, and the benefits they enjoyed from working with you. Think it’s too much? Think again — the purpose of the case study is to emphasize, again and again, how well your product works.

The good news is that depending on your design, the executive summary can be mixed with the subtitle or with the “About the Company” section. Many times, this section doesn’t need an explicit “Executive Summary” subheading. You do need, however, to provide a convenient snapshot for readers to scan.

In the above example, ADP included information about its customer in a scannable bullet-point format, then provided two sections: “Business Challenge” and “How ADP Helped.” We love how simple and easy the format is to follow for those who are unfamiliar with ADP or its typical customer.

4. About the Company

Readers need to know and understand who your customer is. This is important for several reasons: It helps your reader potentially relate to your customer, it defines your ideal client profile (which is essential to deter poor-fit prospects who might have reached out without knowing they were a poor fit), and it gives your customer an indirect boon by subtly promoting their products and services.

Feel free to keep this section as simple as possible. You can simply copy and paste information from the company’s LinkedIn, use a quote directly from your customer, or take a more creative storytelling approach.

In the above example, HubSpot included one paragraph of description for Crunch Fitness and a few bullet points. Below, ADP tells the story of its customer using an engaging, personable technique that effectively draws readers in.

5. Challenges and Objectives

The challenges and objectives section of your case study is the place to lay out, in detail, the difficulties your customer faced prior to working with you — and what they hoped to achieve when they enlisted your help.

In this section, you can be as brief or as descriptive as you’d like, but remember: Stress the urgency of the situation. Don’t understate how much your customer needed your solution (but don’t exaggerate and lie, either). Provide contextual information as necessary. For instance, the pandemic and societal factors may have contributed to the urgency of the need.

Take the above example from design consultancy IDEO:

“Educational opportunities for adults have become difficult to access in the United States, just when they’re needed most. To counter this trend, IDEO helped the city of South Bend and the Drucker Institute launch Bendable, a community-powered platform that connects people with opportunities to learn with and from each other.”

We love how IDEO mentions the difficulties the United States faces at large, the efforts its customer is taking to address these issues, and the steps IDEO took to help.

6. How Product/Service Helped

This is where you get your product or service to shine. Cover the specific benefits that your customer enjoyed and the features they gleaned the most use out of. You can also go into detail about how you worked with and for your customer. Maybe you met several times before choosing the right solution, or you consulted with external agencies to create the best package for them.

Whatever the case may be, try to illustrate how easy and pain-free it is to work with the representatives at your company. After all, potential customers aren’t looking to just purchase a product. They’re looking for a dependable provider that will strive to exceed their expectations.

In the above example, IDEO describes how it partnered with research institutes and spoke with learners to create Bendable, a free educational platform. We love how it shows its proactivity and thoroughness. It makes potential customers feel that IDEO might do something similar for them.

The results are essential, and the best part is that you don’t need to write the entirety of the case study before sharing them. Like HubSpot, IDEO, and ADP, you can include the results right below the subtitle or executive summary. Use data and numbers to substantiate the success of your efforts, but if you don’t have numbers, you can provide quotes from your customers.

We can’t overstate the importance of the results. In fact, if you wanted to create a short case study, you could include your title, challenge, solution (how your product helped), and result.

8. Supporting Visuals or Quotes

Let your customer speak for themselves by including quotes from the representatives who directly interfaced with your company.

Visuals can also help, even if they’re stock images. On one side, they can help you convey your customer’s industry, and on the other, they can indirectly convey your successes. For instance, a picture of a happy professional — even if they’re not your customer — will communicate that your product can lead to a happy client.

In this example from IDEO, we see a man standing in a boat. IDEO’s customer is neither the man pictured nor the manufacturer of the boat, but rather Conservation International, an environmental organization. This imagery provides a visually pleasing pattern interrupt to the page, while still conveying what the case study is about.

9. Future Plans

This is optional, but including future plans can help you close on a more positive, personable note than if you were to simply include a quote or the results. In this space, you can show that your product will remain in your customer’s tech stack for years to come, or that your services will continue to be instrumental to your customer’s success.

Alternatively, if you work only on time-bound projects, you can allude to the positive impact your customer will continue to see, even after years of the end of the contract.

10. Call to Action (CTA)

Not every case study needs a CTA, but we’d still encourage it. Putting one at the end of your case study will encourage your readers to take an action on your website after learning about the work you've done.

It will also make it easier for them to reach out, if they’re ready to start immediately. You don’t want to lose business just because they have to scroll all the way back up to reach out to your team.

To help you visualize this case study outline, check out the case study template below, which can also be downloaded here .

You drove the results, made the connection, set the expectations, used the questionnaire to conduct a successful interview, and boiled down your findings into a compelling story. And after all of that, you're left with a little piece of sales enabling gold — a case study.

To show you what a well-executed final product looks like, have a look at some of these marketing case study examples.

1. "Shopify Uses HubSpot CRM to Transform High Volume Sales Organization," by HubSpot

What's interesting about this case study is the way it leads with the customer. This reflects a major HubSpot value, which is to always solve for the customer first. The copy leads with a brief description of why Shopify uses HubSpot and is accompanied by a short video and some basic statistics on the company.

Notice that this case study uses mixed media. Yes, there is a short video, but it's elaborated upon in the additional text on the page. So, while case studies can use one or the other, don't be afraid to combine written copy with visuals to emphasize the project's success.

2. "New England Journal of Medicine," by Corey McPherson Nash

When branding and design studio Corey McPherson Nash showcases its work, it makes sense for it to be visual — after all, that's what they do. So in building the case study for the studio's work on the New England Journal of Medicine's integrated advertising campaign — a project that included the goal of promoting the client's digital presence — Corey McPherson Nash showed its audience what it did, rather than purely telling it.

Notice that the case study does include some light written copy — which includes the major points we've suggested — but lets the visuals do the talking, allowing users to really absorb the studio's services.

3. "Designing the Future of Urban Farming," by IDEO

Here's a design company that knows how to lead with simplicity in its case studies. As soon as the visitor arrives at the page, he or she is greeted with a big, bold photo, and two very simple columns of text — "The Challenge" and "The Outcome."

Immediately, IDEO has communicated two of the case study's major pillars. And while that's great — the company created a solution for vertical farming startup INFARM's challenge — it doesn't stop there. As the user scrolls down, those pillars are elaborated upon with comprehensive (but not overwhelming) copy that outlines what that process looked like, replete with quotes and additional visuals.

4. "Secure Wi-Fi Wins Big for Tournament," by WatchGuard

Then, there are the cases when visuals can tell almost the entire story — when executed correctly. Network security provider WatchGuard can do that through this video, which tells the story of how its services enhanced the attendee and vendor experience at the Windmill Ultimate Frisbee tournament.

5. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Boosts Social Media Engagement and Brand Awareness with HubSpot

In the case study above , HubSpot uses photos, videos, screenshots, and helpful stats to tell the story of how the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame used the bot, CRM, and social media tools to gain brand awareness.

6. Small Desk Plant Business Ups Sales by 30% With Trello

This case study from Trello is straightforward and easy to understand. It begins by explaining the background of the company that decided to use it, what its goals were, and how it planned to use Trello to help them.

It then goes on to discuss how the software was implemented and what tasks and teams benefited from it. Towards the end, it explains the sales results that came from implementing the software and includes quotes from decision-makers at the company that implemented it.

7. Facebook's Mercedes Benz Success Story

Facebook's Success Stories page hosts a number of well-designed and easy-to-understand case studies that visually and editorially get to the bottom line quickly.

Each study begins with key stats that draw the reader in. Then it's organized by highlighting a problem or goal in the introduction, the process the company took to reach its goals, and the results. Then, in the end, Facebook notes the tools used in the case study.

Showcasing Your Work

You work hard at what you do. Now, it's time to show it to the world — and, perhaps more important, to potential customers. Before you show off the projects that make you the proudest, we hope you follow these important steps that will help you effectively communicate that work and leave all parties feeling good about it.

Editor's Note: This blog post was originally published in February 2017 but was updated for comprehensiveness and freshness in July 2021.

Don't forget to share this post!

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Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Assignments

• Annotated Bibliography
• Analyzing a Scholarly Journal Article
• Group Presentations
• Dealing with Nervousness
• Using Visual Aids
• Grading Someone Else's Paper
• Types of Structured Group Activities
• Group Project Survival Skills
• Leading a Class Discussion
• Multiple Book Review Essay
• Reviewing Collected Works
• Writing a Case Analysis Paper
• Writing a Case Study
• About Informed Consent
• Writing Field Notes
• Writing a Policy Memo
• Writing a Reflective Paper
• Writing a Research Proposal
• Generative AI and Writing
• Acknowledgments

Definition and Introduction

Case analysis is a problem-based teaching and learning method that involves critically analyzing complex scenarios within an organizational setting for the purpose of placing the student in a “real world” situation and applying reflection and critical thinking skills to contemplate appropriate solutions, decisions, or recommended courses of action. It is considered a more effective teaching technique than in-class role playing or simulation activities. The analytical process is often guided by questions provided by the instructor that ask students to contemplate relationships between the facts and critical incidents described in the case.

Cases generally include both descriptive and statistical elements and rely on students applying abductive reasoning to develop and argue for preferred or best outcomes [i.e., case scenarios rarely have a single correct or perfect answer based on the evidence provided]. Rather than emphasizing theories or concepts, case analysis assignments emphasize building a bridge of relevancy between abstract thinking and practical application and, by so doing, teaches the value of both within a specific area of professional practice.

Given this, the purpose of a case analysis paper is to present a structured and logically organized format for analyzing the case situation. It can be assigned to students individually or as a small group assignment and it may include an in-class presentation component. Case analysis is predominately taught in economics and business-related courses, but it is also a method of teaching and learning found in other applied social sciences disciplines, such as, social work, public relations, education, journalism, and public administration.

Ellet, William. The Case Study Handbook: A Student's Guide . Revised Edition. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2018; Christoph Rasche and Achim Seisreiner. Guidelines for Business Case Analysis . University of Potsdam; Writing a Case Analysis . Writing Center, Baruch College; Volpe, Guglielmo. "Case Teaching in Economics: History, Practice and Evidence." Cogent Economics and Finance 3 (December 2015). doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/23322039.2015.1120977.

How to Approach Writing a Case Analysis Paper

The organization and structure of a case analysis paper can vary depending on the organizational setting, the situation, and how your professor wants you to approach the assignment. Nevertheless, preparing to write a case analysis paper involves several important steps. As Hawes notes, a case analysis assignment “...is useful in developing the ability to get to the heart of a problem, analyze it thoroughly, and to indicate the appropriate solution as well as how it should be implemented” [p.48]. This statement encapsulates how you should approach preparing to write a case analysis paper.

Before you begin to write your paper, consider the following analytical procedures:

• Review the case to get an overview of the situation . A case can be only a few pages in length, however, it is most often very lengthy and contains a significant amount of detailed background information and statistics, with multilayered descriptions of the scenario, the roles and behaviors of various stakeholder groups, and situational events. Therefore, a quick reading of the case will help you gain an overall sense of the situation and illuminate the types of issues and problems that you will need to address in your paper. If your professor has provided questions intended to help frame your analysis, use them to guide your initial reading of the case.
• Read the case thoroughly . After gaining a general overview of the case, carefully read the content again with the purpose of understanding key circumstances, events, and behaviors among stakeholder groups. Look for information or data that appears contradictory, extraneous, or misleading. At this point, you should be taking notes as you read because this will help you develop a general outline of your paper. The aim is to obtain a complete understanding of the situation so that you can begin contemplating tentative answers to any questions your professor has provided or, if they have not provided, developing answers to your own questions about the case scenario and its connection to the course readings,lectures, and class discussions.
• Determine key stakeholder groups, issues, and events and the relationships they all have to each other . As you analyze the content, pay particular attention to identifying individuals, groups, or organizations described in the case and identify evidence of any problems or issues of concern that impact the situation in a negative way. Other things to look for include identifying any assumptions being made by or about each stakeholder, potential biased explanations or actions, explicit demands or ultimatums , and the underlying concerns that motivate these behaviors among stakeholders. The goal at this stage is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the situational and behavioral dynamics of the case and the explicit and implicit consequences of each of these actions.
• Identify the core problems . The next step in most case analysis assignments is to discern what the core [i.e., most damaging, detrimental, injurious] problems are within the organizational setting and to determine their implications. The purpose at this stage of preparing to write your analysis paper is to distinguish between the symptoms of core problems and the core problems themselves and to decide which of these must be addressed immediately and which problems do not appear critical but may escalate over time. Identify evidence from the case to support your decisions by determining what information or data is essential to addressing the core problems and what information is not relevant or is misleading.
• Explore alternative solutions . As noted, case analysis scenarios rarely have only one correct answer. Therefore, it is important to keep in mind that the process of analyzing the case and diagnosing core problems, while based on evidence, is a subjective process open to various avenues of interpretation. This means that you must consider alternative solutions or courses of action by critically examining strengths and weaknesses, risk factors, and the differences between short and long-term solutions. For each possible solution or course of action, consider the consequences they may have related to their implementation and how these recommendations might lead to new problems. Also, consider thinking about your recommended solutions or courses of action in relation to issues of fairness, equity, and inclusion.
• Decide on a final set of recommendations . The last stage in preparing to write a case analysis paper is to assert an opinion or viewpoint about the recommendations needed to help resolve the core problems as you see them and to make a persuasive argument for supporting this point of view. Prepare a clear rationale for your recommendations based on examining each element of your analysis. Anticipate possible obstacles that could derail their implementation. Consider any counter-arguments that could be made concerning the validity of your recommended actions. Finally, describe a set of criteria and measurable indicators that could be applied to evaluating the effectiveness of your implementation plan.

Use these steps as the framework for writing your paper. Remember that the more detailed you are in taking notes as you critically examine each element of the case, the more information you will have to draw from when you begin to write. This will save you time.

NOTE : If the process of preparing to write a case analysis paper is assigned as a student group project, consider having each member of the group analyze a specific element of the case, including drafting answers to the corresponding questions used by your professor to frame the analysis. This will help make the analytical process more efficient and ensure that the distribution of work is equitable. This can also facilitate who is responsible for drafting each part of the final case analysis paper and, if applicable, the in-class presentation.

Framework for Case Analysis . College of Management. University of Massachusetts; Hawes, Jon M. "Teaching is Not Telling: The Case Method as a Form of Interactive Learning." Journal for Advancement of Marketing Education 5 (Winter 2004): 47-54; Rasche, Christoph and Achim Seisreiner. Guidelines for Business Case Analysis . University of Potsdam; Writing a Case Study Analysis . University of Arizona Global Campus Writing Center; Van Ness, Raymond K. A Guide to Case Analysis . School of Business. State University of New York, Albany; Writing a Case Analysis . Business School, University of New South Wales.

Structure and Writing Style

A case analysis paper should be detailed, concise, persuasive, clearly written, and professional in tone and in the use of language . As with other forms of college-level academic writing, declarative statements that convey information, provide a fact, or offer an explanation or any recommended courses of action should be based on evidence. If allowed by your professor, any external sources used to support your analysis, such as course readings, should be properly cited under a list of references. The organization and structure of case analysis papers can vary depending on your professor’s preferred format, but its structure generally follows the steps used for analyzing the case.

Introduction

The introduction should provide a succinct but thorough descriptive overview of the main facts, issues, and core problems of the case . The introduction should also include a brief summary of the most relevant details about the situation and organizational setting. This includes defining the theoretical framework or conceptual model on which any questions were used to frame your analysis.

Following the rules of most college-level research papers, the introduction should then inform the reader how the paper will be organized. This includes describing the major sections of the paper and the order in which they will be presented. Unless you are told to do so by your professor, you do not need to preview your final recommendations in the introduction. U nlike most college-level research papers , the introduction does not include a statement about the significance of your findings because a case analysis assignment does not involve contributing new knowledge about a research problem.

Background Analysis

Background analysis can vary depending on any guiding questions provided by your professor and the underlying concept or theory that the case is based upon. In general, however, this section of your paper should focus on:

• Providing an overarching analysis of problems identified from the case scenario, including identifying events that stakeholders find challenging or troublesome,
• Identifying assumptions made by each stakeholder and any apparent biases they may exhibit,
• Describing any demands or claims made by or forced upon key stakeholders, and
• Highlighting any issues of concern or complaints expressed by stakeholders in response to those demands or claims.

These aspects of the case are often in the form of behavioral responses expressed by individuals or groups within the organizational setting. However, note that problems in a case situation can also be reflected in data [or the lack thereof] and in the decision-making, operational, cultural, or institutional structure of the organization. Additionally, demands or claims can be either internal and external to the organization [e.g., a case analysis involving a president considering arms sales to Saudi Arabia could include managing internal demands from White House advisors as well as demands from members of Congress].

Throughout this section, present all relevant evidence from the case that supports your analysis. Do not simply claim there is a problem, an assumption, a demand, or a concern; tell the reader what part of the case informed how you identified these background elements.

Identification of Problems

In most case analysis assignments, there are problems, and then there are problems . Each problem can reflect a multitude of underlying symptoms that are detrimental to the interests of the organization. The purpose of identifying problems is to teach students how to differentiate between problems that vary in severity, impact, and relative importance. Given this, problems can be described in three general forms: those that must be addressed immediately, those that should be addressed but the impact is not severe, and those that do not require immediate attention and can be set aside for the time being.

All of the problems you identify from the case should be identified in this section of your paper, with a description based on evidence explaining the problem variances. If the assignment asks you to conduct research to further support your assessment of the problems, include this in your explanation. Remember to cite those sources in a list of references. Use specific evidence from the case and apply appropriate concepts, theories, and models discussed in class or in relevant course readings to highlight and explain the key problems [or problem] that you believe must be solved immediately and describe the underlying symptoms and why they are so critical.

Alternative Solutions

This section is where you provide specific, realistic, and evidence-based solutions to the problems you have identified and make recommendations about how to alleviate the underlying symptomatic conditions impacting the organizational setting. For each solution, you must explain why it was chosen and provide clear evidence to support your reasoning. This can include, for example, course readings and class discussions as well as research resources, such as, books, journal articles, research reports, or government documents. In some cases, your professor may encourage you to include personal, anecdotal experiences as evidence to support why you chose a particular solution or set of solutions. Using anecdotal evidence helps promote reflective thinking about the process of determining what qualifies as a core problem and relevant solution .

Throughout this part of the paper, keep in mind the entire array of problems that must be addressed and describe in detail the solutions that might be implemented to resolve these problems.

Recommended Courses of Action

In some case analysis assignments, your professor may ask you to combine the alternative solutions section with your recommended courses of action. However, it is important to know the difference between the two. A solution refers to the answer to a problem. A course of action refers to a procedure or deliberate sequence of activities adopted to proactively confront a situation, often in the context of accomplishing a goal. In this context, proposed courses of action are based on your analysis of alternative solutions. Your description and justification for pursuing each course of action should represent the overall plan for implementing your recommendations.

For each course of action, you need to explain the rationale for your recommendation in a way that confronts challenges, explains risks, and anticipates any counter-arguments from stakeholders. Do this by considering the strengths and weaknesses of each course of action framed in relation to how the action is expected to resolve the core problems presented, the possible ways the action may affect remaining problems, and how the recommended action will be perceived by each stakeholder.

In addition, you should describe the criteria needed to measure how well the implementation of these actions is working and explain which individuals or groups are responsible for ensuring your recommendations are successful. In addition, always consider the law of unintended consequences. Outline difficulties that may arise in implementing each course of action and describe how implementing the proposed courses of action [either individually or collectively] may lead to new problems [both large and small].

Throughout this section, you must consider the costs and benefits of recommending your courses of action in relation to uncertainties or missing information and the negative consequences of success.

The conclusion should be brief and introspective. Unlike a research paper, the conclusion in a case analysis paper does not include a summary of key findings and their significance, a statement about how the study contributed to existing knowledge, or indicate opportunities for future research.

Begin by synthesizing the core problems presented in the case and the relevance of your recommended solutions. This can include an explanation of what you have learned about the case in the context of your answers to the questions provided by your professor. The conclusion is also where you link what you learned from analyzing the case with the course readings or class discussions. This can further demonstrate your understanding of the relationships between the practical case situation and the theoretical and abstract content of assigned readings and other course content.

Problems to Avoid

The literature on case analysis assignments often includes examples of difficulties students have with applying methods of critical analysis and effectively reporting the results of their assessment of the situation. A common reason cited by scholars is that the application of this type of teaching and learning method is limited to applied fields of social and behavioral sciences and, as a result, writing a case analysis paper can be unfamiliar to most students entering college.

After you have drafted your paper, proofread the narrative flow and revise any of these common errors:

• Unnecessary detail in the background section . The background section should highlight the essential elements of the case based on your analysis. Focus on summarizing the facts and highlighting the key factors that become relevant in the other sections of the paper by eliminating any unnecessary information.
• Analysis relies too much on opinion . Your analysis is interpretive, but the narrative must be connected clearly to evidence from the case and any models and theories discussed in class or in course readings. Any positions or arguments you make should be supported by evidence.
• Analysis does not focus on the most important elements of the case . Your paper should provide a thorough overview of the case. However, the analysis should focus on providing evidence about what you identify are the key events, stakeholders, issues, and problems. Emphasize what you identify as the most critical aspects of the case to be developed throughout your analysis. Be thorough but succinct.
• Writing is too descriptive . A paper with too much descriptive information detracts from your analysis of the complexities of the case situation. Questions about what happened, where, when, and by whom should only be included as essential information leading to your examination of questions related to why, how, and for what purpose.
• Inadequate definition of a core problem and associated symptoms . A common error found in case analysis papers is recommending a solution or course of action without adequately defining or demonstrating that you understand the problem. Make sure you have clearly described the problem and its impact and scope within the organizational setting. Ensure that you have adequately described the root causes w hen describing the symptoms of the problem.
• Recommendations lack specificity . Identify any use of vague statements and indeterminate terminology, such as, “A particular experience” or “a large increase to the budget.” These statements cannot be measured and, as a result, there is no way to evaluate their successful implementation. Provide specific data and use direct language in describing recommended actions.
• Unrealistic, exaggerated, or unattainable recommendations . Review your recommendations to ensure that they are based on the situational facts of the case. Your recommended solutions and courses of action must be based on realistic assumptions and fit within the constraints of the situation. Also note that the case scenario has already happened, therefore, any speculation or arguments about what could have occurred if the circumstances were different should be revised or eliminated.

Bee, Lian Song et al. "Business Students' Perspectives on Case Method Coaching for Problem-Based Learning: Impacts on Student Engagement and Learning Performance in Higher Education." Education & Training 64 (2022): 416-432; The Case Analysis . Fred Meijer Center for Writing and Michigan Authors. Grand Valley State University; Georgallis, Panikos and Kayleigh Bruijn. "Sustainability Teaching using Case-Based Debates." Journal of International Education in Business 15 (2022): 147-163; Hawes, Jon M. "Teaching is Not Telling: The Case Method as a Form of Interactive Learning." Journal for Advancement of Marketing Education 5 (Winter 2004): 47-54; Georgallis, Panikos, and Kayleigh Bruijn. "Sustainability Teaching Using Case-based Debates." Journal of International Education in Business 15 (2022): 147-163; .Dean,  Kathy Lund and Charles J. Fornaciari. "How to Create and Use Experiential Case-Based Exercises in a Management Classroom." Journal of Management Education 26 (October 2002): 586-603; Klebba, Joanne M. and Janet G. Hamilton. "Structured Case Analysis: Developing Critical Thinking Skills in a Marketing Case Course." Journal of Marketing Education 29 (August 2007): 132-137, 139; Klein, Norman. "The Case Discussion Method Revisited: Some Questions about Student Skills." Exchange: The Organizational Behavior Teaching Journal 6 (November 1981): 30-32; Mukherjee, Arup. "Effective Use of In-Class Mini Case Analysis for Discovery Learning in an Undergraduate MIS Course." The Journal of Computer Information Systems 40 (Spring 2000): 15-23; Pessoa, Silviaet al. "Scaffolding the Case Analysis in an Organizational Behavior Course: Making Analytical Language Explicit." Journal of Management Education 46 (2022): 226-251: Ramsey, V. J. and L. D. Dodge. "Case Analysis: A Structured Approach." Exchange: The Organizational Behavior Teaching Journal 6 (November 1981): 27-29; Schweitzer, Karen. "How to Write and Format a Business Case Study." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/how-to-write-and-format-a-business-case-study-466324 (accessed December 5, 2022); Reddy, C. D. "Teaching Research Methodology: Everything's a Case." Electronic Journal of Business Research Methods 18 (December 2020): 178-188; Volpe, Guglielmo. "Case Teaching in Economics: History, Practice and Evidence." Cogent Economics and Finance 3 (December 2015). doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/23322039.2015.1120977.

Writing Tip

Ca se Study and Case Analysis Are Not the Same!

Confusion often exists between what it means to write a paper that uses a case study research design and writing a paper that analyzes a case; they are two different types of approaches to learning in the social and behavioral sciences. Professors as well as educational researchers contribute to this confusion because they often use the term "case study" when describing the subject of analysis for a case analysis paper. But you are not studying a case for the purpose of generating a comprehensive, multi-faceted understanding of a research problem. R ather, you are critically analyzing a specific scenario to argue logically for recommended solutions and courses of action that lead to optimal outcomes applicable to professional practice.

To avoid any confusion, here are twelve characteristics that delineate the differences between writing a paper using the case study research method and writing a case analysis paper:

• Case study is a method of in-depth research and rigorous inquiry ; case analysis is a reliable method of teaching and learning . A case study is a modality of research that investigates a phenomenon for the purpose of creating new knowledge, solving a problem, or testing a hypothesis using empirical evidence derived from the case being studied. Often, the results are used to generalize about a larger population or within a wider context. The writing adheres to the traditional standards of a scholarly research study. A case analysis is a pedagogical tool used to teach students how to reflect and think critically about a practical, real-life problem in an organizational setting.
• The researcher is responsible for identifying the case to study; a case analysis is assigned by your professor . As the researcher, you choose the case study to investigate in support of obtaining new knowledge and understanding about the research problem. The case in a case analysis assignment is almost always provided, and sometimes written, by your professor and either given to every student in class to analyze individually or to a small group of students, or students select a case to analyze from a predetermined list.
• A case study is indeterminate and boundless; a case analysis is predetermined and confined . A case study can be almost anything [see item 9 below] as long as it relates directly to examining the research problem. This relationship is the only limit to what a researcher can choose as the subject of their case study. The content of a case analysis is determined by your professor and its parameters are well-defined and limited to elucidating insights of practical value applied to practice.
• Case study is fact-based and describes actual events or situations; case analysis can be entirely fictional or adapted from an actual situation . The entire content of a case study must be grounded in reality to be a valid subject of investigation in an empirical research study. A case analysis only needs to set the stage for critically examining a situation in practice and, therefore, can be entirely fictional or adapted, all or in-part, from an actual situation.
• Research using a case study method must adhere to principles of intellectual honesty and academic integrity; a case analysis scenario can include misleading or false information . A case study paper must report research objectively and factually to ensure that any findings are understood to be logically correct and trustworthy. A case analysis scenario may include misleading or false information intended to deliberately distract from the central issues of the case. The purpose is to teach students how to sort through conflicting or useless information in order to come up with the preferred solution. Any use of misleading or false information in academic research is considered unethical.
• Case study is linked to a research problem; case analysis is linked to a practical situation or scenario . In the social sciences, the subject of an investigation is most often framed as a problem that must be researched in order to generate new knowledge leading to a solution. Case analysis narratives are grounded in real life scenarios for the purpose of examining the realities of decision-making behavior and processes within organizational settings. A case analysis assignments include a problem or set of problems to be analyzed. However, the goal is centered around the act of identifying and evaluating courses of action leading to best possible outcomes.
• The purpose of a case study is to create new knowledge through research; the purpose of a case analysis is to teach new understanding . Case studies are a choice of methodological design intended to create new knowledge about resolving a research problem. A case analysis is a mode of teaching and learning intended to create new understanding and an awareness of uncertainty applied to practice through acts of critical thinking and reflection.
• A case study seeks to identify the best possible solution to a research problem; case analysis can have an indeterminate set of solutions or outcomes . Your role in studying a case is to discover the most logical, evidence-based ways to address a research problem. A case analysis assignment rarely has a single correct answer because one of the goals is to force students to confront the real life dynamics of uncertainly, ambiguity, and missing or conflicting information within professional practice. Under these conditions, a perfect outcome or solution almost never exists.
• Case study is unbounded and relies on gathering external information; case analysis is a self-contained subject of analysis . The scope of a case study chosen as a method of research is bounded. However, the researcher is free to gather whatever information and data is necessary to investigate its relevance to understanding the research problem. For a case analysis assignment, your professor will often ask you to examine solutions or recommended courses of action based solely on facts and information from the case.
• Case study can be a person, place, object, issue, event, condition, or phenomenon; a case analysis is a carefully constructed synopsis of events, situations, and behaviors . The research problem dictates the type of case being studied and, therefore, the design can encompass almost anything tangible as long as it fulfills the objective of generating new knowledge and understanding. A case analysis is in the form of a narrative containing descriptions of facts, situations, processes, rules, and behaviors within a particular setting and under a specific set of circumstances.
• Case study can represent an open-ended subject of inquiry; a case analysis is a narrative about something that has happened in the past . A case study is not restricted by time and can encompass an event or issue with no temporal limit or end. For example, the current war in Ukraine can be used as a case study of how medical personnel help civilians during a large military conflict, even though circumstances around this event are still evolving. A case analysis can be used to elicit critical thinking about current or future situations in practice, but the case itself is a narrative about something finite and that has taken place in the past.
• Multiple case studies can be used in a research study; case analysis involves examining a single scenario . Case study research can use two or more cases to examine a problem, often for the purpose of conducting a comparative investigation intended to discover hidden relationships, document emerging trends, or determine variations among different examples. A case analysis assignment typically describes a stand-alone, self-contained situation and any comparisons among cases are conducted during in-class discussions and/or student presentations.

The Case Analysis . Fred Meijer Center for Writing and Michigan Authors. Grand Valley State University; Mills, Albert J. , Gabrielle Durepos, and Eiden Wiebe, editors. Encyclopedia of Case Study Research . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2010; Ramsey, V. J. and L. D. Dodge. "Case Analysis: A Structured Approach." Exchange: The Organizational Behavior Teaching Journal 6 (November 1981): 27-29; Yin, Robert K. Case Study Research and Applications: Design and Methods . 6th edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2017; Crowe, Sarah et al. “The Case Study Approach.” BMC Medical Research Methodology 11 (2011):  doi: 10.1186/1471-2288-11-100; Yin, Robert K. Case Study Research: Design and Methods . 4th edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishing; 1994.

• ~[123]~: Jun 3, 2024 9:44 AM
• ~[124]~: https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/assignments

Tips for Preparing a Case Study or Fact Sheet

When communicating about your policy or program, case studies and fact sheets help provide detailed information. A case study often highlights specific achievements and outlines how a project demonstrates excellence in energy efficiency, while a fact sheet often summarizing activities within a policy or program.

Related Resources

Tips for writing a blog, exploring benchmarking and transparency in des moines, st. louis benchmarking website.

City Energy Project: Tips for Preparing a Case Study or Fact Sheet

There are many ways to tell an energy story. Case studies and fact sheets capture specific successes and goals of a project or program. The overall achievements and benefits to the community should also be captured. When communicating about your policy or program, case studies and fact sheets help provide detailed information. A case study often highlights specific achievements and outlines how a project demonstrates excellence in energy efficiency, while a fact sheet often summarizes activities within a policy or program. This guide provides an overview of what case studies and fact sheets are, how to develop them, and also provides city examples from Boston, Reno, and Des Moines.

This resource is part of the  City Energy Project Resource Library . Launched in 2019, the library is the culmination of 6+ years of work on the ground in 20 U.S. cities to reduce energy use in large buildings. The City Energy Project is a joint project of IMT and the Natural Resources Defense Council  (NRDC). For more information, visit  www.cityenergyproject.org .

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• TemplateLab

Case Study Templates

49 free case study examples & templates.

A case study is a report of an event, problem or activity. A case study format usually contains a hypothetical or real situation. It would also include any intricacies you might come across in the workplace.

You can use a case study to help you see how these intricacies might affect decisions.

Table of Contents

• 1 Case Study Templates
• 2 Common types of case study templates
• 3 Case Study Examples
• 4 Benefits of using case study templates in businesses
• 5 Case Study Formats
• 6 Tips for writing a case study template
• 7.1 Decide on the type of case study you will perform
• 7.2 Reach out to potential participants for your case study
• 7.3 Prepare your questions
• 7.4 Lay out the case study

When you make a case analysis format, you would have to analyze the situation at hand. You have to apply your own thinking skills and knowledge when performing the case study.

Also, doing this will hone your reasoning skills and your ability to draw conclusions. An effective case study example should:

• Have their basis from real-life situations but you may conceal identities.
• Consist of a number of parts which would end with points for discussion.
• Include enough information the reader can use to deal with issues and problems.
• Be very believable for anyone who reads it.

A case study is a type of research methodology. It’s typically utilized in social sciences. When you do this, you’d have to study a phenomenon or issue from a real-life perspective.

Such studies are usually based on in-depth analysis of a person, a group or even an event. You perform them to investigate the underlying causes of specific principles.

Common types of case study templates

Anyone who wants to perform a collective study may use a case study format. You can create a case analysis format on your own or download a template from here.

When you use such templates, you won’t have to think about what you need to include in your document. You can focus more on the individual, group, or event that you’re studying.

You can use different types of templates you can use for your case study. These include:

• Student case study template
• Nursing case study template
• Clinical case study template
• Memorial hospital case study template
• Basic psychology case study template
• Treatment injury case study template

Create or find a template which would suit your own needs. There aren’t any strict formats for these documents. The process is more important. In fact, some people see a case study as a type of research strategy. You can use it to investigate a phenomenon and see its influence over time. When do the process, you’d need a template to input all the information from your study.

Case Study Examples

Benefits of using case study templates in businesses

Before we discuss how to write a case study, let’s go through its benefits. The document you create while conducting your study is very relevant. When decision-makers do research on a new product, they would use this document as a reference.

They can help you identify possible solutions to their problems. This is why it’s important to keep the documents along with other important files. Serving as a reference is only one of the benefits of creating and using such templates. Here are the other benefits:

• To help influence customers more effectively In businesses, customer testimonials are extremely important. You can use them to see what you need to do to keep your business going. A case study example can be a form of support from a satisfied customer given directly to the business. You can use the template to bulk up your marketing campaign. It can serve the same purpose as product reviews on online shops like Amazon. These reviews can sway the buyers in a positive way. So you can use the case study to raise awareness on how to serve your customers more effectively. This will help encourage your customers and increase sales .
• To help encourage empathy The information contained within the document may help encourage empathy in its readers. In businesses, it may help the customers see how the product will help or work for them. To make it more effective, the document should focus on the readers and not the product you’re selling. You can describe real-life issues and explain how your product helped solve them. This would make the customers see why they need your product. It may also help your customers see why they need to patronize your business over others.
• To show that you understand and care for the customers When it comes to businesses, case studies are usually focused on their products and sales. However, this isn’t advisable as customers aren’t really fooled by such strategies. Instead, your document should address questions and issues which your customers frequently encounter. When you create such a document through your study, it will show that you care about the customers. It will help them see that you put in an effort to understand them and cater to their needs.
• To strengthen the brand When you create a case study, you can use it to strengthen your brand. Since it’s typically based on real-life situations, it becomes relatable. Through this document, you can create an emotional connection with your customers. If you can execute the study and the document well, it will be very beneficial for your business . You can show the customers that you have what they need. This will help make your brand stronger and more established.
• To repurpose content Finally, you can also use the document’s content for other things. This serves as a benefit because repurposing the content will save you a lot of time and money. You can use the document as a reference to create other written works for your business. You can also use the document as a basis to create another case study in the future. Create a similar template which focuses on other types of customers. These customers are the ones who patronize your business.

Case Study Formats

Tips for writing a case study template

You can use case studies for different purposes. In social science, it can help you understand the situations and problems of other people. In education, it can help you see how certain factors affect student academics.

In businesses, it can help earn the trust of potential customers. But do you know how to write a case study?

For some people, writing a case analysis format comes easy. For some, they need to look at some case study examples before they start making their own document. You can also download a template from here if you want to make things easier for you.

Case Analysis Formats

If you want to prove something you believe in, you need to create a compelling case study template. When you’ve done so, this will have a powerfully positive impact on what you made it for. Here are some tips, steps, and guidelines to help you out:

Decide on the type of case study you will perform

First and foremost, you need to determine which type of case study you will perform. You need to plan your case study well. You don’t just pick a topic then write about it. You need to find a cause you really believe in or a problem you want to solve.

In business, you need to focus on your customers. If you want to sell your products and services, think about your customers. Here are some things you can consider when making a case study for your business:

• When you make your study, be sure you have an extensive knowledge of your products. Without this knowledge, you won’t be able to create an effective document. One which will connect with your readers or your customers.
• If you want to show the best side of your business, be smart when creating your document. Find customers who have wonderful things to say about your product. Use their testimonials in your document. Do this to encourage your readers to support your business.
• Remember that the case study can help strengthen your brand. That’s why it’s important to create a study which will really make your business stand out. Think about how you’d like to present your information.

Reach out to potential participants for your case study

Without participants, you won’t have a case study. Prepare everything you need to before reaching out to your potential participants. Ensure them that there will always be open communication throughout the process.

This means that you’d have to prepare your timeline and expectations right away. This will help avoid any delays in the process.

Before talking to participants, you should already know what you’ll ask of them. For instance, you may want to ask permission to share the information you gather publicly.

You can send a letter or an email to your participants asking them to be part of your study. In the letter, include what you expect from them and what they can expect from you.

This will give them a good idea of what they need to do and prepare. Your introductory letter should contain:

• A clear and concise explanation of your purpose for creating the case study. Also, indicate how you will use the information you collect.
• A statement which would define the information which you’re planning to include. This is especially important if you will add trademarked information about a company.
• A clear explanation of your expectations from the participants. If you have any expectations which extend beyond your case study, explain them too.
• A note about any compensation you’re offering to the participants.

You may also add other information as needed. After you’ve sent out your letter, there’s a whole process which would follow. From acceptance of your offer to the final approval, you need to know all the steps:

• First off, your participants need to accept your offer/proposal. Once they’ve done that, you can include them in your list of participants for the case study.
• Then, you can give your participants a questionnaire to complete. This would help you out as the information would come directly from them. A questionnaire is a very effective way to collect data from your participants.
• After this, you can interview your participants too. Schedule an interview with each of your participants. Before this though, you should have already prepared all your questions.
• Then you can start making a draft of your case study template. If you’re working with a team, have them review your draft before finalizing it. Otherwise, you can ask your superior or manager to review your document.
• After this, you can finalize your case study. Just make sure that you’ve checked and verified all the information on it.

If your participants ask for it, you can give them a copy of your finalized study. Either that or you can tell them where they can access the document. Do this if you’ve posted it online like on your company’s website .

Case study format may vary depending on different factors. These include the nature of the situation, how you intend to use the information, and more.

Prepare your questions

Let’s go back to the interview process. Before you give the questionnaires to your participants, prepare your questions. The same thing goes for your interviews. If you want to make a strong case study, you should have strong questions too.

Here are some examples to start you off. These are great questions to ask if you’re conducting a study for your business:

• What are you looking for in a product?
• Have you experienced any challenges before purchasing our product?
• What makes our product stand out?
• Why did you make the decision to choose our product?
• What benefits have you gained from using our product?

These are some excellent questions which will give you very useful information. The best part is, you’ll gather the data straight from your participants.

Lay out the case study

Finally, when you have all the information you need, you can start laying out your case study. There aren’t any standard rules for structuring this document. However, it’s important to include certain elements to make the document effective.

These include:

• The title which should be brief but compelling.
• The executive summary . This would describe the document in a brief but interesting way.
• The introduction which would contain information about you and your organization.
• The challenges which would describe the problem or issues. Those which pushed you to create the study.
• The description which states how you helped solve the problem.
• The results of your case study.

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How to Create an Impressive Fact Sheet? (Steps and Template Included)

Learn how to create an impressive fact sheet and get access to Bit’s smart pre-made fact sheet template! Read on…

Compressing details about your business or about your product or service into a single document can be a tedious task. But why would you want to create this document in the first place?

For starters, giving all the essential information about your business or product in a compressed document makes it easy and quick for others to understand what you do and why should they care.

 Fact sheets play a huge role in PR, sales, onboarding of new employees , pitching to investors, providing a company overview to partners and clients, etc. It’s an easy way to make sure all of these entities are able to understand the key parts of your business quickly and effectively.

What is a Fact Sheet? (Definition)

A fact sheet, also known as a factsheet and fact file is a one-sheet document, usually, a single page long , which comprises information and data about a company, startup, organization, or the product or service they provide.

A fact sheet lists all the key information, facts, and figures around a particular topic, in a visual manner, with the help of files, charts, images, etc.

Fact sheets often contain company overview, product information, statistics, technical data, FAQs, lists, “how-to” pages, educational material, and so on.

The one thing you should take special care of while creating fact sheets is to make them clear, crisp, and concise. They are usually displayed in a visual format to emphasize key information.

Read more: How To Write An Impressive Business One-pager (Template Included) 

Why create a fact sheet?

Here are some ways fact sheets are used by companies:

• Product or service fact sheets can be made for the sales and marketing teams to distribute to clients, partners, or prospects.
• A startup fact sheet can be made as an introduction for investors .
• Fact sheets can be made for internal reporting . For example, the finance department can create fact sheets for the company’s Q3 earnings and distribute them internally or to shareholders.
• Organization fact sheets for human resources.
• Fact sheets as marketing material and sales enablement content .
• PR and media relationship  fact sheets can provide journalists with all the information they need to write about you.

Fact sheets are necessary for all-size companies and have a multitude of use-cases.

However, before creating a fact sheet, you should always be crystal clear about the purpose of creating it and its intended audience. Only then you will be able to create an informative fact sheet that your readers will pay attention to and enjoy.

Things to know before writing a Fact Sheet

There are a few things one must keep in mind before creating a fact sheet. These include:

• A fact sheet should preferably be a single page long.
• The information mentioned in the fact sheet should be brief and concise.
• Since visual information is easy to grasp, a fact sheet should be visually appealing comprising tables, charts, graphs, and bullet points.
• Fact sheets should be easily readable .
• Add a clear call to action at the end (a phone number, your email address, your social media links, etc).

Read more:  Company Profile: What is it & How to Write a Perfect one?

Importance of a Fact Sheet

Now that you have some idea about a fact sheet, it’s time to teach you the importance and the role it plays in the success of a business:

1. Saves time

Facts sheets are usually one page long. Therefore, they help save a lot of time for the reader by providing them all key information (without missing out on vital information) on a single page.

Since fact sheets are made to be visual first, a reader can quickly skim through a lot of information and facts quickly and easily.

For example, If you are creating a fact sheet for investors, they would greatly appreciate your effort in summarizing all the key information on a single page and helping them save their most important asset, i.e. time.

2. Easy to read

As we’ve mentioned before, fact sheets comprise lots of white spaces, bullet points, and bold headings.

On top of that, they are usually very visual in nature with key information presented using tables, graphs, and charts that are easy to read and grasp.

3. Cheap to produce

Steps for creating a fact sheet

Keep in mind the following steps while creating your fact sheet:

1. Add a header

The header acts as the title of your fact sheet. You can add a bold heading along with a striking image to get your audience’s attention from the get-go.

2. Include company description

  Start off your fact sheet with your company’s name and a short description of what it’s about. Add some basic information about your company like your office locations, the total number of employees, year of establishment, industry, etc. Feel free to add any other crucial information about your product, service, or company.

3. Talk briefly about your sheet’s vision and mission

Explain in a line or two, what your company stands for, why it exists, and what are its plans for the future. This can also be a good spot to add your company’s slogan or tagline.

4. Explain Your company’s founding story

Include your founding story of how the business was started, who started it, and why they started it.

5. Describe products and services

Describe your core offering and business activities. Who it is for, and why it’s better than the alternative. Make use of graphs, images, and tables to show key metrics, features, and comparisons.

6. Include milestones

  This is an important part of your fact sheet. Include major milestones and accomplishments. Include sales milestones, expansion milestones, funding rounds, etc. List down all the major milestones using bullet points to make them easy to review.

Some additional information you can include in your fact sheet includes:

• Core Values
• Key Metrics
• Customer Segments

You can then end the fact sheet by giving your contact information like a phone number, email address, and social media profiles for your audience to connect with you.

Read more:  Sales Sheet: What is it & How to Create it? (Steps Included)

How to use bit.ai for writing your fact sheet?

If you itching to create one for yourself, worry no more! Let’s show you how you can create a visually appealing fact sheet quickly and easily.

There are two major components that make or break a fact sheet: content and design.

We have already discussed how fact sheets need to compress all the vital information, data, statistics, and facts into a single page, and at the same time, leave no important knowledge behind.

However, the content of your fact sheet will only take you so far. You have to present that vital information in a professional, readable, and visually stunning manner.

Thus, both content and design play a huge role in the creation of an effective fact sheet. However, writing great content in a concise manner and making it visually appealing can take some time, effort, and a lot of time emailing your team members.

What if, your team members could work simultaneously in a collaborative workspace to create an awesome-looking fact sheet?

This is where Bit comes in.

Bit is a new-age cloud-based document collaboration tool that helps teams create, manage, and track workplace documents including fact sheets.

Bit helps you make sure your fact sheets are more than just plain boring text and images . Apart from allowing multiple users to collaborate on documents , Bit also allows users to embed any sort of rich media into documents like YouTube videos, Google Docs, One Drive Excel Spreadsheets, GIFs, Tweets, interactive charts, etc.

Basically, anything on the internet with a link (i.e. www.example.com, https://example.com) can be shared and Bit will automatically turn it into live visual content that lives on your workplace documents!

Just copy-paste the URL of your content on a blank line of the document editor and hit enter. Bit, then generates a live preview of your digital content within your document. Imagine how rich and interactive your fact sheets can become.

The best part is that Bit documents allow simultaneous collaboration between team members.

This means that team members like content creators, editors, designers, marketers, etc. can work together to produce fact sheets (or any other workplace document) by brainstorming and pitching in their ideas!

The resulting documents are created faster, they look impressive, they’re creative, visually stunning, and best of all error-free!

Another great thing about Bit is that you can actually track your workplace documents when you share them with your audience. You can understand how effective your content actually is by observing how much time was spent on your documents, how often they were viewed, etc.

Bonus: To kickstart your efforts to create an awesome-looking fact sheet, we have designed a fact sheet template just for you! You can use it as it is or can make changes according to your brand and vision!

Here’s the perfect template to create an awesome-looking Fact Sheet.

Recommended power links and files you can add to your Bit Template includes:

• YouTube, Vimeo
• Google Sheets, OneDrive Excel
• Presentations (Google Drive, OneDrive)
• Upload Files

Use this template as it is or customize it according to your company’s needs. Make it as dynamic and visually appealing as possible!

Few more templates you might be interested in:

• SWOT Analysis Template
• Scope of Work Template
• Business Plan Template
• Status Report Template
• Competitor Research Template
• Training Manual Template
• Project Proposal Template
• Company Fact Sheet
• Executive Summary Template
• Operational Plan Template
• Pitch Deck Template

🎥Watch this video to learn more👇

A fact sheet is an important yet underrated piece of document.

• It summarizes critical information about a company, startup, product, or service in a single-page document.
• It is useful as it acts as a marketing material, sales enablement tool, and internal reporting document.
• It is easy to read and grasp and also cheap to produce and distribute.
• The design of your fact sheet is as important as its content.
• You should make use of pre-made digital fact sheet templates to create a visually appealing fact sheet document quickly.

So what are you waiting for? Create amazing-looking fact sheets and other workplace documents and start impressing clients, partners, investors, prospects, and your team members with Bit today!

Further reads : 

• How To Write Project Reports That “Wow” Your Clients
• Information Security Plan: What is it & How to Create it?
• Sales Proposal: What is it & How to Create a Perfect One?
• Business Continuity Plan: What, Why & How to Create it?
• Founders’ Agreement: What is it & How to Create it?
• How To Write A Project Proposal That’ll Get Approved In No time

How to Write an Impressive Business One Pager? (Template Included)

21 Collaboration Statistics that Show the Power of Teamwork!

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About Bit.ai

Bit.ai is the essential next-gen workplace and document collaboration platform. that helps teams share knowledge by connecting any type of digital content. With this intuitive, cloud-based solution, anyone can work visually and collaborate in real-time while creating internal notes, team projects, knowledge bases, client-facing content, and more.

The smartest online Google Docs and Word alternative, Bit.ai is used in over 100 countries by professionals everywhere, from IT teams creating internal documentation and knowledge bases, to sales and marketing teams sharing client materials and client portals.

👉👉Click Here to Check out Bit.ai.

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• How it works

A Quick Guide to Case Study with Examples

Published by Alvin Nicolas at August 14th, 2021 , Revised On August 29, 2023

A case study is a documented history and detailed analysis of a situation concerning organisations, industries, and markets.

A case study:

• Focuses on discovering new facts of the situation under observation.
• Includes data collection from multiple sources over time.
• Widely used in social sciences to study the underlying information, organisation, community, or event.
• It does not provide any solution to the problem .

When to Use Case Study? 

You can use a case study in your research when:

• The focus of your study is to find answers to how and why questions .
• You don’t have enough time to conduct extensive research; case studies are convenient for completing your project successfully.
• You want to analyse real-world problems in-depth, then you can use the method of the case study.

You can consider a single case to gain in-depth knowledge about the subject, or you can choose multiple cases to know about various aspects of your  research problem .

What are the Aims of the Case Study?

• The case study aims at identifying weak areas that can be improved.
• This method is often used for idiographic research (focuses on individual cases or events).
• Another aim of the case study is nomothetic research (aims to discover new theories through data analysis of multiple cases).

Types of Case Studies

There are different types of case studies that can be categorised based on the purpose of the investigation.

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How to Conduct a Case Study?

• Select the Case to Investigate
• Formulate the Research Question
• Review of Literature
• Choose the Precise Case to Use in your Study
• Select Data Collection and Analysis Techniques
• Collect the Data
• Analyse the Data
• Prepare the Report

Step1: Select the Case to Investigate

The first step is to select a case to conduct your investigation. You should remember the following points.

• Make sure that you perform the study in the available timeframe.
• There should not be too much information available about the organisation.
• You should be able to get access to the organisation.
• There should be enough information available about the subject to conduct further research.

Step2: Formulate the Research Question

It’s necessary to  formulate a research question  to proceed with your case study. Most of the research questions begin with  how, why, what, or what can . 

You can also use a research statement instead of a research question to conduct your research which can be conditional or non-conditional. 

Step 3: Review of Literature

Once you formulate your research statement or question, you need to extensively  review the documentation about the existing discoveries related to your research question or statement.

Step 4: Choose the Precise Case to Use in your Study

You need to select a specific case or multiple cases related to your research. It would help if you treated each case individually while using multiple cases. The outcomes of each case can be used as contributors to the outcomes of the entire study.  You can select the following cases. 

• Representing various geographic regions
• Cases with various size parameters
• Explaining the existing theories or assumptions
• Leading to discoveries
• Providing a base for future research.

Step 5: Select Data Collection and Analysis Techniques

You can choose both  qualitative or quantitative approaches  for  collecting the data . You can use  interviews ,  surveys , artifacts, documentation, newspapers, and photographs, etc. To avoid biased observation, you can triangulate  your research to provide different views of your case. Even if you are focusing on a single case, you need to observe various case angles. It would help if you constructed validity, internal and external validity, as well as reliability.

Example: Identifying the impacts of contaminated water on people’s health and the factors responsible for it. You need to gather the data using qualitative and quantitative approaches to understand the case in such cases.

Construct validity:  You should select the most suitable measurement tool for your research. 

Internal validity:   You should use various methodological tools to  triangulate  the data. Try different methods to study the same hypothesis.

External validity:  You need to effectively apply the data beyond the case’s circumstances to more general issues.

Reliability:   You need to be confident enough to formulate the new direction for future studies based on your findings.

Also Read:  Reliability and Validity

Step 6: Collect the Data

Beware of the following when collecting data:

• Information should be gathered systematically, and the collected evidence from various sources should contribute to your research objectives.
• Don’t collect your data randomly.
• Recheck your research questions to avoid mistakes.
• You should save the collected data in any popular format for clear understanding.
• While making any changes to collecting information, make sure to record the changes in a document.
• You should maintain a case diary and note your opinions and thoughts evolved throughout the study.

Step 7: Analyse the Data

The research data identifies the relationship between the objects of study and the research questions or statements. You need to reconfirm the collected information and tabulate it correctly for better understanding. 

Step 8: Prepare the Report

It’s essential to prepare a report for your case study. You can write your case study in the form of a scientific paper or thesis discussing its detail with supporting evidence. 

A case study can be represented by incorporating  quotations,  stories, anecdotes,  interview transcripts , etc., with empirical data in the result section. 

You can also write it in narrative styles using  textual analysis  or   discourse analysis . Your report should also include evidence from published literature, and you can put it in the discussion section.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Case Study

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the case study.

A case study is a research method where a specific instance, event, or situation is deeply examined to gain insights into real-world complexities. It involves detailed analysis of context, data, and variables to understand patterns, causes, and effects, often used in various disciplines for in-depth exploration.

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Sampling methods are used to to draw valid conclusions about a large community, organization or group of people, but they are based on evidence and reasoning.

Content analysis is used to identify specific words, patterns, concepts, themes, phrases, or sentences within the content in the recorded communication.

A variable is a characteristic that can change and have more than one value, such as age, height, and weight. But what are the different types of variables?

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Writing A Case Study

Case Study Format

Simple Case Study Format for Students to Follow

People also read

A Complete Case Study Writing Guide With Examples

Understand the Types of Case Study Here

Brilliant Case Study Examples and Templates For Your Help

Having trouble making your case studies stand out? Finding it hard to organise your story? You're not alone! 

Many students struggle with case study writing !

Imagine spending a lot of time on your case studies, but they don't grab your reader's interest.  But don't worry! 

In this guide, we will go step by step through case study formatting, along with practical tips to make your research stand out from the rest! By following our step-by-step approach, you can understand how to write a case study assignment well. 

So, let’s get started!

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• 1. How to Format a Case Study 
• 2. Case Study Format Template
• 3. Case Study Format Examples

How to Format a Case Study 

When it comes to crafting a compelling case study, understanding how to write case study format is key to presenting your research effectively. 

If you are wondering how to make case study format, here are the elements to include in your case study paper format.

Create an interesting title for your work. Keep it simple and short.

Here you need to briefly elaborate on the accomplishment. What you have done and how you got there.

Write about the entire story in one paragraph followed by 2-3 bullet points to display the case study contents.

An introduction about what the case study is all about.

Describe the challenges of the customer prior to using your product or service. Explain the long-term goals or objectives that the customer set out to achieve.

In this 2-3 paragraph section describe how your product or service specifically benefited and helped achieve the goals. You can also use percentages to show your contributions.

In the relevant section of your case study, add 1-2 quotes and visuals to support the story you are telling. You can also use icons to summarise information and highlight areas of your research.

Figure out what a study means and look at where else we can learn more are really important for making academic work have a bigger impact.

Call to action is optional but adding one can encourage your readers to take some action after learning your work.

Case Study Formatting Guidelines 

Effective case study formatting is essential to convey your insights clearly and engage your audience. Follow these guidelines to ensure your case study is well-organised and impactful:

• Opt for easily readable fonts like Arial, Calibri, or Times New Roman.
• Maintain a consistent font size, typically 12 points for the body text.
• Set line spacing to double-spaced for the entire document.
• Use bullet points for concise and scannable information presentation.
• Employ numbered lists for sequences of steps or chronological order of events.
• Bold or italicize key phrases to draw attention to critical points; use underline sparingly.
• Choose left, center, or justified alignment based on your overall design.
• Make your headings clear and organized so readers know what's important.

If you need further assistance, check our case study format for students pdf here:

How To Write A Case Study Pdf

Case Study Format Template

Case studies can be used for different purposes. In social sciences, it can help you understand the problems of other people.

In businesses, it can help you earn the trust of potential customers. But do you even know what are the different  types of case study  and how to write one?

Refer to this case study format pdf before you start writing your own document. This student case study format sample contains all the information you might need when gathering information for your case study.

Case Study Format Examples

Case study examples are the best way to learn the basic techniques for writing a great case study on your own. 

Explore these short case study sample pdfs to gain insights into presenting your research cohesively:

For your help, we have also compiled real-life  case study examples  along with a format that you can refer to while writing your own.

APA Case Study Format

If you are asked to write a case study in APA format, keep in mind there are some specific requirements that you need to adhere to.

Here is a case study APA format example for you to learn how to format a case study.

Business Case Study Format

Business case studies can help businesses sell products or services to prospects. Here is a perfect example for you to learn how to write an impressive business case study.

Case Study Format For MBA Students

Case Study Format Nursing

Writing a great nursing case study can be tough. That’s why we have provided a case study format for nursing students to use as a guide in creating their work. 

Refer to this family case study format example if you are writing a nursing case study for the first time.

Nursing Case Study Format

Harvard Business School Case Study Format

Looking for HBS style business case study? Here is one for you to read and take hints and ideas to prepare this type of case study like a professional.

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Medical Case Study Format

Writing medical case studies is helpful in medical practices as it gives a lot of information about different diseases. Look at this example and learn how to write a detailed medical case study.

Case Study Format Psychology 

To study how the human mind works, you need a clear and organised method. Follow this easy psychology case study format to explore the details of psychological research:

Case Study Format Psychology

To sum it up, getting good at writing case studies means combining a clear structure, good storytelling, and smart presentation. If you follow the tips I've shared in this blog, you're on your way to making interesting stories that grab people's attention.

If your case study is causing problems, consider getting professional help. 

Our essay writing company  aims to help you secure top grades by meeting the criteria set by professors. 

Our skilled writers are here to assist with any type of assignment you may have. Explore our case study writing service to relieve your stress and excel academically.

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Dr. Barbara is a highly experienced writer and author who holds a Ph.D. degree in public health from an Ivy League school. She has worked in the medical field for many years, conducting extensive research on various health topics. Her writing has been featured in several top-tier publications.

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How to Write a Case Study - All You Wanted to Know

What do you study in your college? If you are a psychology, sociology, or anthropology student, we bet you might be familiar with what a case study is. This research method is used to study a certain person, group, or situation. In this guide from our dissertation writing service , you will learn how to write a case study professionally, from researching to citing sources properly. Also, we will explore different types of case studies and show you examples — so that you won’t have any other questions left.

What Is a Case Study?

A case study is a subcategory of research design which investigates problems and offers solutions. Case studies can range from academic research studies to corporate promotional tools trying to sell an idea—their scope is quite vast.

What Is the Difference Between a Research Paper and a Case Study?

While research papers turn the reader’s attention to a certain problem, case studies go even further. Case study guidelines require students to pay attention to details, examining issues closely and in-depth using different research methods. For example, case studies may be used to examine court cases if you study Law, or a patient's health history if you study Medicine. Case studies are also used in Marketing, which are thorough, empirically supported analysis of a good or service's performance. Well-designed case studies can be valuable for prospective customers as they can identify and solve the potential customers pain point.

Case studies involve a lot of storytelling – they usually examine particular cases for a person or a group of people. This method of research is very helpful, as it is very practical and can give a lot of hands-on information. Most commonly, the length of the case study is about 500-900 words, which is much less than the length of an average research paper.

The structure of a case study is very similar to storytelling. It has a protagonist or main character, which in your case is actually a problem you are trying to solve. You can use the system of 3 Acts to make it a compelling story. It should have an introduction, rising action, a climax where transformation occurs, falling action, and a solution.

Here is a rough formula for you to use in your case study:

Problem (Act I): > Solution (Act II) > Result (Act III) > Conclusion.

Types of Case Studies

The purpose of a case study is to provide detailed reports on an event, an institution, a place, future customers, or pretty much anything. There are a few common types of case study, but the type depends on the topic. The following are the most common domains where case studies are needed:

• Historical case studies are great to learn from. Historical events have a multitude of source info offering different perspectives. There are always modern parallels where these perspectives can be applied, compared, and thoroughly analyzed.
• Problem-oriented case studies are usually used for solving problems. These are often assigned as theoretical situations where you need to immerse yourself in the situation to examine it. Imagine you’re working for a startup and you’ve just noticed a significant flaw in your product’s design. Before taking it to the senior manager, you want to do a comprehensive study on the issue and provide solutions. On a greater scale, problem-oriented case studies are a vital part of relevant socio-economic discussions.
• Cumulative case studies collect information and offer comparisons. In business, case studies are often used to tell people about the value of a product.
• Critical case studies explore the causes and effects of a certain case.
• Illustrative case studies describe certain events, investigating outcomes and lessons learned.

Need a compelling case study? EssayPro has got you covered. Our experts are ready to provide you with detailed, insightful case studies that capture the essence of real-world scenarios. Elevate your academic work with our professional assistance.

Case Study Format

The case study format is typically made up of eight parts:

• Executive Summary. Explain what you will examine in the case study. Write an overview of the field you’re researching. Make a thesis statement and sum up the results of your observation in a maximum of 2 sentences.
• Background. Provide background information and the most relevant facts. Isolate the issues.
• Case Evaluation. Isolate the sections of the study you want to focus on. In it, explain why something is working or is not working.
• Proposed Solutions. Offer realistic ways to solve what isn’t working or how to improve its current condition. Explain why these solutions work by offering testable evidence.
• Conclusion. Summarize the main points from the case evaluations and proposed solutions. 6. Recommendations. Talk about the strategy that you should choose. Explain why this choice is the most appropriate.
• Implementation. Explain how to put the specific strategies into action.
• References. Provide all the citations.

How to Write a Case Study

Let's discover how to write a case study.

Setting Up the Research

When writing a case study, remember that research should always come first. Reading many different sources and analyzing other points of view will help you come up with more creative solutions. You can also conduct an actual interview to thoroughly investigate the customer story that you'll need for your case study. Including all of the necessary research, writing a case study may take some time. The research process involves doing the following:

• Define your objective. Explain the reason why you’re presenting your subject. Figure out where you will feature your case study; whether it is written, on video, shown as an infographic, streamed as a podcast, etc.
• Determine who will be the right candidate for your case study. Get permission, quotes, and other features that will make your case study effective. Get in touch with your candidate to see if they approve of being part of your work. Study that candidate’s situation and note down what caused it.
• Identify which various consequences could result from the situation. Follow these guidelines on how to start a case study: surf the net to find some general information you might find useful.
• Make a list of credible sources and examine them. Seek out important facts and highlight problems. Always write down your ideas and make sure to brainstorm.
• Focus on several key issues – why they exist, and how they impact your research subject. Think of several unique solutions. Draw from class discussions, readings, and personal experience. When writing a case study, focus on the best solution and explore it in depth. After having all your research in place, writing a case study will be easy. You may first want to check the rubric and criteria of your assignment for the correct case study structure.

Read Also: ' WHAT IS A CREDIBLE SOURCES ?'

Although your instructor might be looking at slightly different criteria, every case study rubric essentially has the same standards. Your professor will want you to exhibit 8 different outcomes:

• Correctly identify the concepts, theories, and practices in the discipline.
• Identify the relevant theories and principles associated with the particular study.
• Evaluate legal and ethical principles and apply them to your decision-making.
• Recognize the global importance and contribution of your case.
• Construct a coherent summary and explanation of the study.
• Demonstrate analytical and critical-thinking skills.
• Explain the interrelationships between the environment and nature.
• Integrate theory and practice of the discipline within the analysis.

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Case Study Outline

Let's look at the structure of an outline based on the issue of the alcoholic addiction of 30 people.

Introduction

• Statement of the issue: Alcoholism is a disease rather than a weakness of character.
• Presentation of the problem: Alcoholism is affecting more than 14 million people in the USA, which makes it the third most common mental illness there.
• Explanation of the terms: In the past, alcoholism was commonly referred to as alcohol dependence or alcohol addiction. Alcoholism is now the more severe stage of this addiction in the disorder spectrum.
• Hypotheses: Drinking in excess can lead to the use of other drugs.
• Importance of your story: How the information you present can help people with their addictions.
• Background of the story: Include an explanation of why you chose this topic.
• Presentation of analysis and data: Describe the criteria for choosing 30 candidates, the structure of the interview, and the outcomes.
• Strong argument 1: ex. X% of candidates dealing with anxiety and depression...
• Strong argument 2: ex. X amount of people started drinking by their mid-teens.
• Strong argument 3: ex. X% of respondents’ parents had issues with alcohol.
• Concluding statement: I have researched if alcoholism is a disease and found out that…
• Recommendations: Ways and actions for preventing alcohol use.

Writing a Case Study Draft

After you’ve done your case study research and written the outline, it’s time to focus on the draft. In a draft, you have to develop and write your case study by using: the data which you collected throughout the research, interviews, and the analysis processes that were undertaken. Follow these rules for the draft:

Use Data to Illustrate Key Points in Your Case Study

Even though your case study is a story, it should be based on evidence. Use as much data as possible to illustrate your point. Without the right data, your case study may appear weak and the readers may not be able to relate to your issue as much as they should. Let's see the examples from essay writing service :

‍ With data: Alcoholism is affecting more than 14 million people in the USA, which makes it the third most common mental illness there. Without data: A lot of people suffer from alcoholism in the United States.

Try to include as many credible sources as possible. You may have terms or sources that could be hard for other cultures to understand. If this is the case, you should include them in the appendix or Notes for the Instructor or Professor.

Finalizing the Draft: Checklist

After you finish drafting your case study, polish it up by answering these ‘ask yourself’ questions and think about how to end your case study:

• Check that you follow the correct case study format, also in regards to text formatting.
• Check that your work is consistent with its referencing and citation style.
• Micro-editing — check for grammar and spelling issues.
• Macro-editing — does ‘the big picture’ come across to the reader? Is there enough raw data, such as real-life examples or personal experiences? Have you made your data collection process completely transparent? Does your analysis provide a clear conclusion, allowing for further research and practice?

Problems to avoid:

• Overgeneralization – Do not go into further research that deviates from the main problem.
• Failure to Document Limitations – Just as you have to clearly state the limitations of a general research study, you must describe the specific limitations inherent in the subject of analysis.
• Failure to Extrapolate All Possible Implications – Just as you don't want to over-generalize from your case study findings, you also have to be thorough in the consideration of all possible outcomes or recommendations derived from your findings.

How to Create a Title Page and Cite a Case Study

Let's see how to create an awesome title page.

Your title page depends on the prescribed citation format. The title page should include:

• A title that attracts some attention and describes your study
• The title should have the words “case study” in it
• The title should range between 5-9 words in length
• Your name and contact information
• Your finished paper should be only 500 to 1,500 words in length.With this type of assignment, write effectively and avoid fluff

Here is a template for the APA and MLA format title page:

There are some cases when you need to cite someone else's study in your own one – therefore, you need to master how to cite a case study. A case study is like a research paper when it comes to citations. You can cite it like you cite a book, depending on what style you need.

Citation Example in MLA ‍ Hill, Linda, Tarun Khanna, and Emily A. Stecker. HCL Technologies. Boston: Harvard Business Publishing, 2008. Print.

Citation Example in APA ‍ Hill, L., Khanna, T., & Stecker, E. A. (2008). HCL Technologies. Boston: Harvard Business Publishing.

Citation Example in Chicago Hill, Linda, Tarun Khanna, and Emily A. Stecker. HCL Technologies.

Case Study Examples

To give you an idea of a professional case study example, we gathered and linked some below.

Eastman Kodak Case Study

Case Study Example: Audi Trains Mexican Autoworkers in Germany

To conclude, a case study is one of the best methods of getting an overview of what happened to a person, a group, or a situation in practice. It allows you to have an in-depth glance at the real-life problems that businesses, healthcare industry, criminal justice, etc. may face. This insight helps us look at such situations in a different light. This is because we see scenarios that we otherwise would not, without necessarily being there. If you need custom essays , try our research paper writing services .

Get Help Form Qualified Writers

Crafting a case study is not easy. You might want to write one of high quality, but you don’t have the time or expertise. If you’re having trouble with your case study, help with essay request - we'll help. EssayPro writers have read and written countless case studies and are experts in endless disciplines. Request essay writing, editing, or proofreading assistance from our custom case study writing service , and all of your worries will be gone.

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What Is A Case Study?

How to cite a case study in apa, how to write a case study.

Daniel Parker

is a seasoned educational writer focusing on scholarship guidance, research papers, and various forms of academic essays including reflective and narrative essays. His expertise also extends to detailed case studies. A scholar with a background in English Literature and Education, Daniel’s work on EssayPro blog aims to support students in achieving academic excellence and securing scholarships. His hobbies include reading classic literature and participating in academic forums.

is an expert in nursing and healthcare, with a strong background in history, law, and literature. Holding advanced degrees in nursing and public health, his analytical approach and comprehensive knowledge help students navigate complex topics. On EssayPro blog, Adam provides insightful articles on everything from historical analysis to the intricacies of healthcare policies. In his downtime, he enjoys historical documentaries and volunteering at local clinics.

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Ecosystem Services Coordinated Case Study Fact Sheets

EPA scientists are working with five communities across the U.S. to develop and apply research that helps the communities solve sustainability-related environmental challenges. These fact sheets summarize their research and offer lessons learned and practical strategies for integrating ecosystem goods and services into community decision-making.

• Ecosystem Services Coordinated Case Study: GREAT LAKES AREA OF CONCERN (pdf) (292.4 KB)
• Ecosystem Services Coordinated Case Study: MOBILE BAY, ALABAMA (pdf) (290.7 KB)
• Ecosystem Services Coordinated Case Study: OKLAHOMA SMALL COMMUNITY (ADA, OKLAHOMA) (pdf) (278.8 KB)
• Ecosystem Services Coordinated Case Study: PACIFIC NORTHWEST (pdf) (364.2 KB)
• Ecosystem Services Coordinated Case Study: SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO (pdf) (246.3 KB)
• Ecosystems Research Home
• Ecosystem Services
• Ecosystems and Water Quality
• Ecosystems & Air Quality
• Ecological Risk Assessment
• Ecosystem-related Tools & Resources
• Ecosystem Research Publications

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BONUS : Read the fact sheet how-to guide.

Fact Sheet Template

The company fact sheet template lets you present a single-page overview of key points about your company, startup, and organization. Business fact sheets can help you communicate key information about your company or product.

• Create a visually-rich fact sheet to showcase your product, service, new hire profiles, or business idea – including charts, images, files, etc.
• Keep a detailed list of all the key information, facts, figures, and statistics around a particular topic.
• Standardize your marketing and sales efforts with consistent, branded fact sheets.

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The company fact sheet is a single-page overview of key points about your company, startup, and organization. Business fact sheets can help you communicate key information about your company or product.

Other  fact sheet templates

How to create a fact sheet with Xtensio

• Click and start editing, no account or credit card required. Follow along with the instructional fact sheet template details. Add charts, graphs, images, and videos to customize the report template and make it your own. Drag & drop. Resize. It’s the easiest editor ever.
• Customize everything in the fact sheet template to match your brand. Define your style guide. Add your (or your client’s) brand fonts and colors. You can even pull colors directly from a website to easily brand your fact sheets and more.
• Work on the key details of your fact sheets together on the cloud. Add colleagues (or clients) to collaborate on the performance ecomap template. Changes automatically save and sync across all devices, in real-time.
• Share a link. Present a slideshow. Embed. Download a PDF/PNG. The fact sheet template seamlessly adapts to your workflow. No more jumping from tool to tool to create different types of deliverables.
• Reuse and repurpose. Save your own custom marketing templates. Or copy and merge into other documents.

Follow along step-by-step with the fact sheet how-to guide

What is a fact sheet?

The company fact sheet is a single-page overview of important information about your business, startup, and organization. It is an easy-to-skim, compact, and concise summary of important key points that can be adapted for many purposes.

The fact sheets template is flexible in its purpose. You can customize the template and create a fact sheet for any of these purposes, plus more:

• Product or service fact sheets for sales teams.
• Investor intros for startups.
• Organization fact sheets for human resources or executive teams.
• Internal reporting.
• Various marketing collaterals.
• PR and media relationship fact sheets.

Pinpointing the purpose of your fact sheet allows you to properly customize the template details and distribute your business fact sheet after completion. And while traditionally created as a one-page Word, Google Docs, or Google Sheets, the file format of your fact sheets should adapt to your needs.

How do you create a fact sheet on one page?

Creating a fact sheet is simple. Save any of Xtensio’s example templates for fact sheets to your dashboard. Follow along with the instructional copy in the fact sheet template and the fact sheet how-to guide to complete all of the template details and information needed for your specific fact sheet purpose.

While you would normally have to select the file format and page size before starting on your fact sheet, Xtensio’s fact sheet template removes that barrier – just click and edit anything, and the file format will adapt to your needs when you’re done. Here is a bit of know-how for writing your fact sheets.

• Make sure you add any and all key details and important information about your company.
• Include social media links, phone numbers, email addresses and other contact information.
• Summarize your mission and vision.
• Describe your product and services.
• Define your market fit.
• Outline your business metrics.
• Identify your customers.
• Introduce your team.

Xtensio’s editor is much easier to use while creating your fact sheet than traditional document creators like Microsoft Word or Google Docs. Click and edit anything in the template. Change color schemes and backgrounds to fit your brand. Add images, videos, charts, and graphs to visualize your information however you need. Using bullet points makes it easier to skim your fact sheet for readers.

The free fact sheet templates are designed to fit as a single-page download document, but you can also easily share a link or present it as a slideshow from right inside your workspace. No more jumping from tool to tool or worrying about file format size and more focus on creating impressive and focused fact sheets to move your business forward.

QUICK TIP: Follow along with the “ How To Make A One Pager (With Template and Examples) ” guide to create your brand’s one-pager to support your factsheet.

Frequently asked questions

How to Make a Fact Sheet?

To make a fact sheet, start on Xtensio. identify your target audience and the key information you want to convey. Use the free template to define a clean layout with headings, bullet points, and visuals for easy readability. Alternatively, You can use software like Microsoft Word, Google Docs, or Canva but Xtensio will give the best results for non-designers.

What is a Fact Sheet Template?

A fact sheet template is a pre-designed document that outlines essential information about a product, service, or organization in a concise and easy-to-read format. It serves as a quick reference guide for stakeholders. Xtensio’s Fact Sheet template includes guiding text that helps the user.

Where Can I Find Free Fact Sheet Templates?

Xtensio offers best-in-class free templates. Free fact sheet templates are also available on various online platforms, such as Canva, Microsoft Office, and Google Docs. Simply search for “fact sheet templates” to find a design that suits your needs.

What Should Be Included in a Fact Sheet?

A typical fact sheet includes the organization’s name, logo, contact information, and key facts or statistics. It may also contain visuals like images or graphs to support the information presented.

How to Customize a Fact Sheet Template?

It is super easy with Xtensio. Customizing a fact sheet template involves replacing guiding text and images with your own content. You can also adjust the layout, colors, and fonts to align with your brand identity, easily.

What is the Ideal Length of a Fact Sheet?

The ideal length of a fact sheet is one to two pages. It should be concise enough to quickly convey essential information while being comprehensive enough to be informative. Xtensio’s template is optimized for online use as well as exporting to pages.

What is the Difference Between a Fact Sheet and a Brochure?

While both are informational documents, a fact sheet is generally a single-page document focused on presenting facts and statistics. A brochure is multi-page and may include more narrative content, such as testimonials or case studies.

How to Distribute a Fact Sheet?

Fact sheets can be distributed through various channels, including email, social media, and print. The distribution method should align with the preferences of your target audience.

Can I Use Fact Sheets for Marketing?

Yes, fact sheets are effective marketing tools. They can be used to highlight the benefits of a product or service, making them useful for sales pitches and promotional campaigns.

How Often Should I Update My Fact Sheet?

The frequency of updates depends on the nature of the information. If the data or statistics are subject to change, it’s advisable to review and update your fact sheet at least quarterly. On Xtensio, updating your fact sheet is a breeze, just click and edit online.

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National Park Case Studies

Yellowstone National Park

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Note: Pew created these case studies using National Park Service data issued from fiscal years 2015 and 2016. The information listed here may no longer reflect the NPS site’s current condition or maintenance requirements. To find the most up-to-date information, please use the National Park Repair Needs tool . 

In 2017, the National Park Service needed an estimated $11.3 billion to eliminate its backlog of deferred maintenance. The Pew Charitable Trusts’ campaign to restore America’s parks has created a series of case studies highlighting examples of repairs needed at our nation’s treasures.

Why We Need to Fix Our Parks, 2020

The National Park Service (NPS) is over 100 years old, and the infrastructure and facilities at the more than 400 sites it manages nationwide are aging. Add wear and tear from visitors and inconsistent annual funding, and the park service can’t keep pace with needed repairs. NPS’ maintenance backlog has grown to an estimated $13.1 billion, and more than half of that is for highest-priority assets.

Cost of Unaddressed National Park Repairs Grows to Nearly $12 Billion

Like a homeowner trying to patch numerous leaks in a roof during a rainstorm, the National Park Service (NPS) urgently needs help to address a backlog of maintenance issues across its more than 400 sites.

National Park Deferred Maintenance Needs

With record crowds contributing to wear and tear and federal funding unreliable, the National Park Service is struggling to keep pace with repairs, estimated at $11.6 billion in fiscal year 2017. Use this tool, based on NPS data, to learn more about deferred maintenance at NPS sites across the county, in your state, and at your favorite park.

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Many viruses are constantly changing, including the virus that causes COVID-19. These changes occur over time and can lead to the emergence of variants  that may have new characteristics, including different ways of spreading.

Anyone infected with COVID-19 can spread it, even if they do NOT have symptoms.

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COVID-19 and Animals

COVID-19 can spread from people to animals in some situations. Pet cats and dogs can sometimes become infected by people with COVID-19. Learn what you should do if you have pets .

Food and Water

There is no evidence to suggest that handling food or consuming food  can spread COVID-19. Follow food safety guidelines when handling and cleaning fresh produce. Do not wash produce with soap, bleach, sanitizer, alcohol, disinfectant, or any other chemical.

Drinking Water

There is also no current evidence that people can get COVID-19 by drinking water. The virus that causes COVID-19 has not been detected in drinking water. Conventional water treatment methods that use filtration and disinfection, such as those in most municipal drinking water systems, should remove or kill the virus that causes COVID-19.​

Natural Bodies of Water (Lakes, Oceans, Rivers)

There are no scientific reports of the virus that causes COVID-19 spreading to people through the water in lakes, oceans, rivers, or other natural bodies of water.

Genetic material from the virus that causes COVID-19 has been found in  untreated wastewater (also referred to as “sewage”). There is no information to date that anyone has become sick with COVID-19 because of direct exposure to treated or untreated wastewater. Wastewater treatment plants use chemical and other disinfection processes to remove and degrade many viruses and bacteria. The virus that causes COVID-19 is inactivated by the disinfection methods used in wastewater treatment.

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Key Facts on Health Coverage of Immigrants

Published: Sep 17, 2023

Note: This content was updated on May 8, 2024 to include updated information about state coverage for immigrants and to reflect the final rule published on May 3, 2024 which will extend eligibility for health coverage to DACA recipients.

As of 2022, there were 45.5 million immigrants residing in the U.S., including 21.2 million noncitizen immigrants and 24.2 million naturalized citizens, who each accounted for about 7% of the total population. 1 Noncitizens include lawfully present and undocumented immigrants. Many individuals live in mixed immigration status families that may include lawfully present immigrants, undocumented immigrants, and/or citizens. One in four children has an immigrant parent, including over one in ten (12%) who are citizen children with at least one noncitizen parent. 2 This fact sheet provides an overview of health coverage for immigrants based on data from The 2023 KFF/LA Times Survey of Immigrants , the largest nationally representative survey focused on immigrants.

As of 2023, half (50%) of likely undocumented immigrant adults and one in five (18%) lawfully present immigrant adults report being uninsured compared to less than one in ten naturalized citizen (6%) and U.S.-born citizen (8%) adults . 3 Noncitizen immigrants are more likely to be uninsured than citizens because they have more limited access to private coverage due to working in jobs that are less likely to provide health benefits and they face eligibility restrictions for federally funded coverage options, including Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace coverage, and Medicare. Those who are eligible for coverage also face a range of enrollment barriers including fear, confusion about eligibility rules, and language and literacy challenges. Reflecting their higher uninsured rate, noncitizen immigrants are more likely than citizens to report barriers to accessing health care and skipping or postponing care. Immigrants have lower health care expenditures than their U.S.-born counterparts given their more limited access and use.

Some states have expanded access to health coverage for immigrants. At the federal level, legislation has been proposed that would expand eligibility for health coverage for immigrants, though it faces no clear path to passage in Congress. At the state level, there has been continued take up of state options to expand Medicaid and CHIP coverage for lawfully present immigrant children and pregnant people, and a small but growing number of states have expanded fully state-funded coverage to certain groups of low-income people regardless of immigration status. However, many immigrants, particularly those who are undocumented, remain ineligible for coverage options.

Many immigrants remain fearful of accessing assistance programs, including health coverage. The Biden Administration reversed prior Trump Administration changes to public charge rules , which may help reduce fears among immigrant families about participating in non-cash assistance programs, including Medicaid and CHIP. It also increased funding for Navigator programs that provide enrollment assistance to individuals, which is particularly important for helping immigrant families enroll in coverage. However, as of 2023, nearly three-quarters of immigrant adults, including nine in ten of those who are likely undocumented, report uncertainty about how use of non-cash assistance programs may impact immigration status or incorrectly believe use may reduce the chances of getting a green card in the future. About a quarter (27%) of likely undocumented immigrants and nearly one in ten (8%) lawfully present immigrants say they avoided applying for food, housing, or health care assistance in the past year due to immigration-related fears.

Overview of Immigrants

Based on federal survey data, as of 2022, there were 45.5 million immigrants residing in the U.S., including 21.2 million noncitizens and 24.2 million naturalized citizens, who each accounted for about 7% of the total population (Figure 1). 4 About six in ten noncitizens were lawfully present immigrants, such as lawful permanent residents (green card holders) and those with a valid work or student visa, while the remaining four in ten were undocumented immigrants, who may include individuals who entered the country without authorization and individuals who entered the country lawfully and stayed after their visa or status expired. 5 Many individuals live in mixed immigration status families that may include lawfully present immigrants, undocumented immigrants, and/or citizens. A total of 19 million or one in four children living in the U.S. had an immigrant parent as of 2022, and the majority of these children were citizens (Figure 1). 6 About 8.6 million or 12% were citizen children with at least one noncitizen parent.

Uninsured Rates by Immigration Status

The 2023 KFF/LA Times Survey of Immigrants , the largest nationally representative survey focused on immigrants, provides data on health coverage of immigrant adults and experiences accessing health care, including by immigration status.

Although the majority of uninsured people are citizens, noncitizen immigrants, particularly likely undocumented immigrants, are significantly more likely to report being uninsured than citizens. As of 2023, half (50%) of likely undocumented immigrants and one in five (18%) lawfully present immigrants say they are uninsured compared to 6% of naturalized citizens and 8% of U.S.-born citizens (Figure 2) . 7

Reflecting their higher uninsured rates, noncitizen immigrants, especially those who are likely undocumented, are more likely than citizens to report barriers to accessing health care and skipping or postponing care. Research shows that having insurance makes a difference in whether and when people access needed care. Those who are uninsured often delay or go without needed care, which can lead to worse health outcomes over the long-term that may ultimately be more complex and expensive to treat . Overall, likely undocumented immigrants are more likely than lawfully present immigrants and naturalized citizens to report not having a usual source of care other than an emergency room, not having a doctor’s visit in the past 12 months, and skipping or postponing care in the past 12 months (Figure 3). 8 Lawfully present immigrants also are more likely than naturalized citizens to say they have not had a doctor’s visit in the past 12 months.

Research also shows that immigrants have lower health care expenditures than their U.S.-born counterparts as a result of lower health care access and use, although their out-of-pocket payments tend to be higher due to higher uninsured rates. Recent research further finds that, because immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants, have lower health care use despite contributing billions of dollars in insurance premiums and taxes, they help subsidize the U.S. health care system and offset the costs of care incurred by U.S.-born citizens.

Access to Health Coverage Among Immigrants

Private coverage.

Despite high rates of employment, noncitizen immigrants have limited access to employer-sponsored coverage. Although most noncitizen immigrant adults say they are employed, they are significantly more likely than citizens to report being lower income (household income less than $40,000) (Figure 4). 9 This pattern reflects disproportionate employment of noncitizen immigrants in low-wage jobs and industries that are less likely to offer employer-sponsored coverage. Given their lower incomes, noncitizen immigrants also face challenges affording employer-sponsored coverage when it is available or through the individual market.

Federally Funded Coverage

Lawfully present immigrants may qualify for Medicaid and CHIP but are subject to certain eligibility restrictions. In general, lawfully present immigrants must have a “qualified” immigration status to be eligible for Medicaid or CHIP, and many, including most lawful permanent residents or “green card” holders, must wait five years after obtaining qualified status before they may enroll. Some immigrants with qualified status, such as refugees and asylees, as well as citizens of Compact of Free Association ( COFA ) communities,  do not have to wait five years before enrolling. Some immigrants, such as those with temporary protected status, are lawfully present but do not have a qualified status and are not eligible to enroll in Medicaid or CHIP regardless of their length of time in the country (Appendix A). For children and pregnant people, states can eliminate the five-year wait and extend coverage to lawfully present immigrants without a qualified status. As of March 2024, 37 states plus D.C. have taken up this option for children and 30 states plus D.C. have elected the option for pregnant individuals.

In December 2020, Congress restored Medicaid eligibility for citizens of COFA communities and in  March 2024 , eligibility was restored for additional federally funded programs including CHIP . The U.S. government has COFA agreements with the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic of Palau. Certain citizens of these nations can lawfully work, study, and reside in the U.S., but they had been excluded from federally funded Medicaid since 1996, under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. As part of a COVID-relief package, Congress restored Medicaid eligibility for COFA citizens who meet other eligibility requirements for the program effective December 27, 2020. On March 9, 2024, Congress further extended eligibility for  COFA  citizens to newly include other federally funded programs such as CHIP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), among others.

A total of 22 states have also extended coverage to pregnant people regardless of immigration status through the CHIP  From-Conception-to-End-of-Pregnancy  (FCEP) option .  Colorado  plans to implement this coverage by January 2025. While other pregnancy-related coverage in Medicaid and CHIP requires 60 days of postpartum coverage, the CHIP FCEP option does not include this coverage. However, some states that took up this option provide postpartum coverage regardless of immigration status either through a CHIP state plan amendment or using state-only funding. Additionally, ten states (California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington) have used state funding or CHIP health services initiatives to extend postpartum coverage to 12 months to individuals regardless of immigration status to align with the  Medicaid extension  established by the American Rescue Plan Act, and Maryland  extends coverage  for four months postpartum through its health services initiative.

Lawfully present immigrants can purchase coverage through the ACA Marketplaces and, like citizens, may receive tax credits to help pay for premiums and cost sharing that vary on a sliding scale based on income. Generally, these tax credits are available to people with incomes starting from 100% of the federal poverty level (FPL) who are not eligible for other affordable coverage. In addition, lawfully present immigrants with incomes below 100% FPL may receive tax credits if they are ineligible for Medicaid based on immigration status. This group includes lawfully present immigrants who are not eligible for Medicaid or CHIP because they are in the five-year waiting period or do not have a “qualified” status.

Lawfully present immigrants also can qualify for Medicare subject to certain restrictions. Specifically, they must have sufficient work history to qualify for premium-free Medicare Part A. If they do not have sufficient work history, they may qualify if they are lawful permanent residents and have resided in the U.S. for five years immediately prior to enrolling in Medicare, although they must pay premiums to enroll in Part A.

Undocumented immigrants are not eligible to enroll in federally funded coverage including Medicaid, CHIP, or Medicare or to purchase coverage through the ACA Marketplaces. Previously, individuals with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status were not considered lawfully present for purposes of health coverage eligibility and remained ineligible for these coverage options despite having a deferred action status, which otherwise qualified for Marketplace coverage. On May 3, 2024, the Biden Administration published new regulations that will change the definition of lawfully present to include DACA recipients for purposes of eligibility to purchase coverage through the ACA Marketplaces and to receive tax credits to help pay for premiums and cost sharing. The rule will become effective on November 1, 2024.

State Funded Coverage

As of March 2024, 12 states plus D.C. provide comprehensive state-funded coverage for children regardless of immigration status (Figure 5) . These states include California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and D.C. By 2025,  Colorado  and  Minnesota  plan to offer state-funded Medicaid-like coverage to income-eligible children regardless of immigration status. Additionally, two of these states (New Jersey and Vermont) also provide state-funded coverage to income-eligible pregnant people regardless of immigration status, with Vermont extending this coverage for 12 months postpartum.

As of March 2024, six states  (California, Colorado, Illinois, New York, Oregon, Washington) plus D.C. have also expanded fully state-funded coverage to some income-eligible adults regardless of immigration status (Figure 6) . Some additional states  cover  some income-eligible adults who are not otherwise eligible due to immigration status using state-only funds but limit coverage to specific groups, such as lawfully present immigrants who are in the five-year waiting period for Medicaid coverage, or provide more limited benefits. Maryland and Minnesota have also indicated plans to extend coverage to adults.

Data suggest that state coverage options for immigrants make a difference in their health coverage and health care access and use . The 2023 KFF/LA Times  Survey of Immigrants  shows that immigrants residing in states with more expansive coverage policies for immigrants are less likely to be uninsured compared to their counterparts living in states with less expansive coverage policies.  California’s 2016 expansion to cover low-income children regardless of immigration status was associated with a  34%  decline in uninsurance rates. Similarly, a decline in uninsurance rates. Similarly, a  study  found that children who reside in states that have expanded coverage to all children regardless of immigration status were less likely to be uninsured, to forgo medical or dental care, and to go without a preventive health visit than children residing in states that have not expanded coverage. Other research has found that expanding Medicaid coverage to pregnant people regardless of immigration status was associated with higher rates of prenatal care and  improved outcomes  including increases in average gestation length and birth weight among newborns, while more restrictive state coverage policies were associated with  reduced postpartum care  utilization. The cost of providing insurance to immigrant adults through Medicaid expansion was also found to be  less than half  the per person cost of doing so for U.S-born adults. Recent estimates also suggest that the state-funded expansion to all immigrants regardless of status in California could  reduce poverty  among noncitizen immigrants and their families.

Enrollment Barriers

Among immigrants who are eligible for coverage, many remain uninsured because of a range of enrollment barriers, including fear, confusion about eligibility policies, difficulty navigating the enrollment process, and language and literacy challenges. Research suggests that changes to immigration policy made by the Trump Administration contributed to growing fears among immigrant families about enrolling themselves and/or their children in Medicaid and CHIP even if they were eligible. In particular, changes to the public charge policy likely contributed to decreases in participation in Medicaid among immigrant families and their primarily U.S.-born children. The Biden Administration reversed many of these changes, including the changes to public charge policy, and has increased funding for Navigator programs that provide enrollment assistance to individuals, which is particularly important for helping immigrant families enroll in coverage. However, as of 2023, nearly three-quarters of immigrant adults, including nine in ten of those who are likely undocumented, report uncertainty or an incorrect understanding about how use of non-cash assistance programs may impact immigration status or incorrectly believe use may reduce the chances of getting a green card in the future. About a quarter (27%) of likely undocumented immigrants and nearly one in ten (8%) lawfully present immigrants say they avoided applying for food, housing, or health care assistance in the past year due to immigration-related fears .

Although the majority of immigrants are working, noncitizen immigrants, particularly those who are likely undocumented, have high uninsured rates due to more limited access to both public and private coverage. Federal legislation has been proposed that would expand immigrant eligibility for health coverage, though there is no clear path to passage in Congress. In the absence of federal action, some states are filling gaps in access to coverage for immigrants. However, many remain ineligible for any coverage options, contributing to barriers to access and use of care. Those eligible for coverage also face an array of barriers to enrollment, including fear and confusion about eligibility. The Biden Administration has made changes to public charge policies that are intended to reduce fears of enrolling in health coverage and accessing care and increased funding for outreach and enrollment assistance, which may help eligible immigrant families enroll and stay enrolled in coverage. However, immigrants continue to have significant confusion around public charge rules highlighting the importance of outreach and enrollment assistance , including community-led efforts, to rebuild trust and reduce fears among immigrant families about accessing health coverage and care.

KFF analysis of 2022 American Community Survey (ACS) 1-year Public Use Microdata Sample.

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KFF/LA Times Survey of Immigrants (April 10 – June 12, 2023).

Lawfully present immigrants are those who said they are not a U.S. citizen, but currently have a green card (lawful permanent status) or a valid work or student visa; likely undocumented immigrants are those who said they are not a U.S. citizen and do not currently have a green card (lawful permanent status) or a valid work or student visa. These immigrants are classified as “likely undocumented” since they have not affirmatively identified themselves as undocumented.KFF analysis of 2022 American Community Survey (ACS) 1-year Public Use Microdata Sample.

The estimate of the total number of noncitizens in the US is based on the 2022 American Community Survey (ACS) 1-year Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS). The ACS data do not directly indicate whether an immigrant is lawfully present or not. We draw on the methods underlying the 2013 analysis by the State Health Access Data Assistance Center (SHADAC) and the recommendations made by Van Hook et. Al. 1 , 2 This approach uses the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to develop a model that predicts immigration status; it then applies the model to ACS, controlling to state-level estimates of total undocumented population from Pew Research Center. For more detail on the immigration imputation used in this analysis, see the Technical Appendix B .

• Racial Equity and Health Policy
• Access to Care

Also of Interest

• Understanding the U.S. Immigrant Experience: The 2023 KFF/LA Times Survey of Immigrants
• Health and Health Care Experiences of Immigrants: The 2023 KFF/LA Times Survey of Immigrants

COVID-19 vaccines: Get the facts

Looking to get the facts about COVID-19 vaccines? Here's what you need to know about the different vaccines and the benefits of getting vaccinated.

As the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) continues to cause illness, you might have questions about COVID-19 vaccines. Find out about the different types of COVID-19 vaccines, how they work, the possible side effects, and the benefits for you and your family.

COVID-19 vaccine benefits

What are the benefits of getting a covid-19 vaccine.

Staying up to date with a COVID-19 vaccine can:

• Help prevent serious illness and death due to COVID-19 for both children and adults.
• Help prevent you from needing to go to the hospital due to COVID-19 .
• Be a less risky way to protect yourself compared to getting sick with the virus that causes COVID-19.
• Lower long-term risk for cardiovascular complications after COVID-19.

Factors that can affect how well you're protected after a vaccine can include your age, if you've had COVID-19 before or if you have medical conditions such as cancer.

How well a COVID-19 vaccine protects you also depends on timing, such as when you got the shot. And your level of protection depends on how the virus that causes COVID-19 changes and what variants the vaccine protects against.

Talk to your healthcare team about how you can stay up to date with COVID-19 vaccines.

Should I get the COVID-19 vaccine even if I've already had COVID-19?

Yes. Catching the virus that causes COVID-19 or getting a COVID-19 vaccination gives you protection, also called immunity, from the virus. But over time, that protection seems to fade. The COVID-19 vaccine can boost your body's protection.

Also, the virus that causes COVID-19 can change, also called mutate. Vaccination with the most up-to-date variant that is spreading or expected to spread helps keep you from getting sick again.

Researchers continue to study what happens when someone has COVID-19 a second time. Later infections are generally milder than the first infection. But severe illness can still happen. Serious illness is more likely among people older than age 65, people with more than four medical conditions and people with weakened immune systems.

Safety and side effects of COVID-19 vaccines

What covid-19 vaccines have been authorized or approved.

The COVID-19 vaccines available in the United States are:

• 2023-2024 Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, available for people age 6 months and older.
• 2023-2024 Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, available for people age 6 months and older.
• 2023-2024 Novavax COVID-19 vaccine, available for people age 12 years and older.

These vaccines have U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) emergency use authorization or approval.

In December 2020, the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine two-dose series was found to be both safe and effective in preventing COVID-19 infection in people age 18 and older. This data helped predict how well the vaccines would work for younger people. The effectiveness varied by age.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is approved under the name Comirnaty for people age 12 and older. The FDA authorized the vaccine for people age 6 months to 11 years. The number of shots in this vaccination series varies based on a person's age and COVID-19 vaccination history.

In December 2020, the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine was found to be both safe and effective in preventing infection and serious illness among people age 18 or older. The vaccine's ability to protect younger people was predicted based on that clinical trial data.

The FDA approved the vaccine under the name Spikevax for people age 12 and older. The FDA authorized use of the vaccine in people age 6 months to 11 years. The number of shots needed varies based on a person's age and COVID-19 vaccination history.

In July 2022, this vaccine was found to be safe and effective and became available under an emergency use authorization for people age 18 and older.

In August 2022, the FDA authorized the vaccine for people age 12 and older. The number of shots in this vaccination series varies based on a person's age and COVID-19 vaccination history.

In August 2022, the FDA authorized an update to the Moderna and the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines. Both included the original and omicron variants of the virus that causes COVID-19. In June 2023, the FDA directed vaccine makers to update COVID-19 vaccines. The vaccines were changed to target a strain of the virus that causes COVID-19 called XBB.1.5. In September and October 2023, the FDA authorized the use of the updated 2023-2024 COVID-19 vaccines made by Novavax, Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech.

How do the COVID-19 vaccines work?

COVID-19 vaccines help the body get ready to clear out infection with the virus that causes COVID-19.

Both the Pfizer-BioNTech and the Moderna COVID-19 vaccines use genetically engineered messenger RNA (mRNA). The mRNA in the vaccine tells your cells how to make a harmless piece of virus that causes COVID-19.

After you get an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, your muscle cells begin making the protein pieces and displaying them on cell surfaces. The immune system recognizes the protein and begins building an immune response and making antibodies. After delivering instructions, the mRNA is immediately broken down. It never enters the nucleus of your cells, where your DNA is kept.

The Novavax COVID-19 adjuvanted vaccine is a protein subunit vaccine. These vaccines include only protein pieces of a virus that cause your immune system to react the most. The Novavax COVID-19 vaccine also has an ingredient called an adjuvant that helps raise your immune system response.

With a protein subunit vaccine, the body reacts to the proteins and creates antibodies and defensive white blood cells. If you later become infected with the COVID-19 virus, the antibodies will fight the virus. Protein subunit COVID-19 vaccines don't use any live virus and can't cause you to become infected with the COVID-19 virus. The protein pieces also don't enter the nucleus of your cells, where your DNA is kept.

Can a COVID-19 vaccine give you COVID-19?

No. The COVID-19 vaccines available in the U.S. don't use the live virus that causes COVID-19. Because of this, the COVID-19 vaccines can't cause you to become sick with COVID-19.

It can take a few weeks for your body to build immunity after getting a COVID-19 vaccination. As a result, it's possible that you could become infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 just before or after being vaccinated.

What are the possible general side effects of a COVID-19 vaccine?

Some people have no side effects from the COVID-19 vaccine. For those who get them, most side effects go away in a few days.

A COVID-19 vaccine can cause mild side effects after the first or second dose. Pain and swelling where people got the shot is a common side effect. That area also may look reddish on white skin. Other side effects include:

• Fever or chills.
• Muscle pain or joint pain.
• Tiredness, called fatigue.
• Upset stomach or vomiting.
• Swollen lymph nodes.

For younger children up to age 4, symptoms may include crying or fussiness, sleepiness, loss of appetite, or, less often, a fever.

In rare cases, getting a COVID-19 vaccine can cause an allergic reaction. Symptoms of a life-threatening allergic reaction can include:

• Breathing problems.
• Fast heartbeat, dizziness or weakness.
• Swelling in the throat.

If you or a person you're caring for has any life-threatening symptoms, get emergency care.

Less serious allergic reactions include a general rash other than where you got the vaccine, or swelling of the lips, face or skin other than where you got the shot. Contact your healthcare professional if you have any of these symptoms.

You may be asked to stay where you got the vaccine for about 15 minutes after the shot. This allows the healthcare team to help you if you have an allergic reaction. The healthcare team may ask you to wait for longer if you had an allergic reaction from a previous shot that wasn't serious.

Contact a healthcare professional if the area where you got the shot gets worse after 24 hours. And if you're worried about any side effects, contact your healthcare team.

Are there any long-term side effects of the COVID-19 vaccines?

The vaccines that help protect against COVID-19 are safe and effective. Clinical trials tested the vaccines to make sure of those facts. Healthcare professionals, researchers and health agencies continue to watch for rare side effects, even after hundreds of millions of doses have been given in the United States.

Side effects that don't go away after a few days are thought of as long term. Vaccines rarely cause any long-term side effects.

If you're concerned about side effects, safety data on COVID-19 vaccines is reported to a national program called the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System in the U.S. This data is available to the public. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Protection (CDC) also has created v-safe, a smartphone-based tool that allows users to report COVID-19 vaccine side effects.

If you have other questions or concerns about your symptoms, talk to your healthcare professional.

Can COVID-19 vaccines affect the heart?

In some people, COVID-19 vaccines can lead to heart complications called myocarditis and pericarditis. Myocarditis is the swelling, also called inflammation, of the heart muscle. Pericarditis is the swelling, also called inflammation, of the lining outside the heart.

Symptoms to watch for include:

• Chest pain.
• Shortness of breath.
• Feelings of having a fast-beating, fluttering or pounding heart.

If you or your child has any of these symptoms within a week of getting a COVID-19 vaccine, seek medical care.

The risk of myocarditis or pericarditis after a COVID-19 vaccine is rare. These conditions have been reported after COVID-19 vaccination with any of the vaccines offered in the United States. Most cases have been reported in males ages 12 to 39.

These conditions happened more often after the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and typically within one week of COVID-19 vaccination. Most of the people who got care felt better after receiving medicine and resting.

These complications are rare and also may happen after getting sick with the virus that causes COVID-19. In general, research on the effects of the most used COVID-19 vaccines in the United States suggests the vaccines lower the risk of complications such as blood clots or other types of damage to the heart.

If you have concerns, your healthcare professional can help you review the risks and benefits based on your health condition.

Things to know before a COVID-19 vaccine

Are covid-19 vaccines free.

In the U.S., COVID-19 vaccines may be offered at no cost through insurance coverage. For people whose vaccines aren't covered or for those who don't have health insurance, options are available. Anyone younger than 18 years old can get no-cost vaccines through the Vaccines for Children program. Adults can get no-cost COVID-19 vaccines through the temporary Bridges to Access program, which is scheduled to end in December 2024.

Can I get a COVID-19 vaccine if I have an existing health condition?

Yes, COVID-19 vaccines are safe for people who have existing health conditions, including conditions that have a higher risk of getting serious illness with COVID-19.

The COVID-19 vaccine can lower the risk of death or serious illness caused by COVID-19. Your healthcare team may suggest that you get added doses of a COVID-19 vaccine if you have a moderately or severely weakened immune system.

Cancer treatments and other therapies that affect some immune cells also may affect your COVID-19 vaccine. Talk to your healthcare professional about timing additional shots and getting vaccinated after immunosuppressive treatment.

Talk to your healthcare team if you have any questions about when to get a COVID-19 vaccine.

Is it OK to take an over-the-counter pain medicine before or after getting a COVID-19 vaccine?

Don't take medicine before getting a COVID-19 vaccine to prevent possible discomfort. It's not clear how these medicines might impact the effectiveness of the vaccines. It is OK to take this kind of medicine after getting a COVID-19 vaccine, as long as you have no other medical reason that would prevent you from taking it.

Allergic reactions and COVID-19 vaccines

What are the signs of an allergic reaction to a covid-19 vaccine.

Symptoms of a life-threatening allergic reaction can include:

If you or a person you're caring for has any life-threatening symptoms, get emergency care right away.

Less serious allergic reactions include a general rash other than where you got the vaccine, or swelling of the lips, face or skin other than where the shot was given. Contact your healthcare professional if you have any of these symptoms.

Tell your healthcare professional about your reaction, even if it went away on its own or you didn't get emergency care. This reaction might mean that you are allergic to the vaccine. You might not be able to get a second dose of the same vaccine. But you might be able to get a different vaccine for your second dose.

Can I get a COVID-19 vaccine if I have a history of allergic reactions?

If you have a history of severe allergic reactions not related to vaccines or injectable medicines, you may still get a COVID-19 vaccine. You're typically monitored for 30 minutes after getting the vaccine.

If you've had an immediate allergic reaction to other vaccines or injectable medicines, ask your healthcare professional about getting a COVID-19 vaccine. If you've ever had an immediate or severe allergic reaction to any ingredient in a COVID-19 vaccine, the CDC recommends not getting that specific vaccine.

If you have an immediate or severe allergic reaction after getting the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, don't get the second dose. But you might be able to get a different vaccine for your second dose.

Pregnancy, breastfeeding and fertility with COVID-19 vaccines

Can pregnant or breastfeeding women get the covid-19 vaccine.

The CDC recommends getting a COVID-19 vaccine if:

• You are planning to or trying to get pregnant.
• You are pregnant now.
• You are breastfeeding.

Staying up to date on your COVID-19 vaccine helps prevent severe COVID-19 illness. It also may help a newborn avoid getting COVID-19 if you are vaccinated during pregnancy.

People at higher risk of serious illness can talk to a healthcare professional about additional COVID-19 vaccines or other precautions. It also can help to ask about what to do if you get sick so that you can quickly start treatment.

Children and COVID-19 vaccines

If children don't often experience severe illness with covid-19, why do they need a covid-19 vaccine.

While rare, some children can become seriously ill with COVID-19 after getting the virus that causes COVID-19 .

A COVID-19 vaccine might prevent your child from getting the virus that causes COVID-19 . It also may prevent your child from becoming seriously ill or having to stay in the hospital due to the COVID-19 virus.

After a COVID-19 vaccine

Can i stop taking safety precautions after getting a covid-19 vaccine.

You can more safely return to activities that you might have avoided before your vaccine was up to date. You also may be able to spend time in closer contact with people who are at high risk for serious COVID-19 illness.

But vaccines are not 100% effective. So taking other action to lower your risk of getting COVID-19 still helps protect you and others from the virus. These steps are even more important when you're in an area with a high number of people with COVID-19 in the hospital. Protection also is important as time passes since your last vaccination.

If you are at higher risk for serious COVID-19 illness, basic actions to prevent COVID-19 are even more important. Some examples are:

• Avoid close contact with anyone who is sick or has symptoms, if possible.
• Use fans, open windows or doors, and use filters to move the air and keep any germs from lingering.
• Wash your hands well and often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. Or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol.
• Cough or sneeze into a tissue or your elbow. Then wash your hands.
• Clean and disinfect high-touch surfaces. For example, clean doorknobs, light switches, electronics and counters regularly.
• Spread out in crowded public areas, especially in places with poor airflow. This is important if you have a higher risk of serious illness.
• The CDC recommends that people wear a mask in indoor public spaces if COVID-19 is spreading. This means that if you're in an area with a high number of people with COVID-19 in the hospital a mask can help protect you. The CDC suggests wearing the most protective mask possible that you'll wear regularly, that fits well and is comfortable.

Can I still get COVID-19 after I'm vaccinated?

COVID-19 vaccination will protect most people from getting sick with COVID-19. But some people who are up to date with their vaccines may still get COVID-19. These are called vaccine breakthrough infections.

People with vaccine breakthrough infections can spread COVID-19 to others. However, people who are up to date with their vaccines but who have a breakthrough infection are less likely to have serious illness with COVID-19 than those who are not vaccinated. Even when people who are vaccinated get symptoms, they tend to be less severe than those felt by unvaccinated people.

Researchers continue to study what happens when someone has COVID-19 a second time. Reinfections and breakthrough infections are generally milder than the first infection. But severe illness can still happen. Serious illness is more likely among people older than age 65, people with more than four medical conditions and people with weakened immune systems.

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• Updated COVID-19 vaccines for use in the United States beginning in fall 2023. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/updated-covid-19-vaccines-use-united-states-beginning-fall-2023. Accessed April 15, 2024.
• Coronavirus (COVID-19), CBER-regulated biologics: COVID-19 vaccines. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/industry-biologics/coronavirus-covid-19-cber-regulated-biologics. Accessed April 15, 2024.
• Understanding how COVID-19 vaccines work. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines/how-they-work.html. Accessed April 15, 2024.
• Safety of COVID-19 vaccines. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/safety-of-vaccines.html. Accessed April 15, 2024.
• Getting your COVID-19 vaccine. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/expect.html. Accessed April 15, 2024.
• COVID-19 VIS. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/vis/vis-statements/covid-19.html. Accessed April 15, 2024.
• Allergic reactions after COVID-19 vaccination. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/allergic-reaction.html. Accessed April 15, 2024.
• Orenstein W, et al., eds. Vaccine safety. In: Plotkin's Vaccines. 8th ed. Elsevier; 2024. https://www.clinicalkey.com. Accessed April 15, 2024.
• Vaccine adverse event reporting system (VAERS). Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. https://vaers.hhs.gov/. Accessed April 15, 2024.
• V-safe. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/ensuringsafety/monitoring/v-safe/index.html. Accessed April 15, 2024.
• Myocarditis and pericarditis following mRNA COVID-19 vaccination. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/myocarditis.html. Accessed April 15, 2024.
• Vaccines for children. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/programs/vfc/index.html. Accessed April 15, 2024.
• Bridge access program. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/programs/bridge/index.html. Accessed April 15, 2024.
• COVID-19: What people with cancer should know. National Cancer Institute. https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/coronavirus/coronavirus-cancer-patient-information. Accessed April 15, 2024.
• COVID-19 vaccines while pregnant or breastfeeding. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/recommendations/pregnancy.html. Accessed April 15, 2024.
• Berghella V, et al. COVID-19: Overview of pregnancy issues. https://www.uptodate.com/contents/search. Accessed April 15, 2024.
• How to protect yourself and others. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/prevention.html. Accessed April 15, 2024.
• Pediatric data. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#pediatric-data. Accessed April 15, 2024.
• Hygiene and respiratory viruses prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/prevention/hygiene.html. Accessed April 15, 2024.

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• More than 700 000 people die due to suicide every year.
• For every suicide there are many more people who attempt suicide. A prior suicide attempt is an important risk factor for suicide in the general population.
• Suicide is the fourth leading cause of death among 15–29-year-olds.
• Seventy-seven per cent of global suicides occur in low- and middle-income countries.
• Ingestion of pesticide, hanging and firearms are among the most common methods of suicide globally.

Every year 703 000 people take their own life and there are many more people who attempt suicide. Every suicide is a tragedy that affects families, communities and entire countries and has long-lasting effects on the people left behind. Suicide occurs throughout the lifespan and was the fourth leading cause of death among 15–29-year-olds globally in 2019.

Suicide does not just occur in high-income countries but is a global phenomenon in all regions of the world. In fact, over 77% of global suicides occurred in low- and middle-income countries in 2019.

Suicide is a serious public health problem; however, suicides are preventable with timely, evidence-based and often low-cost interventions. For national responses to be effective, a comprehensive multisectoral suicide prevention strategy is needed.

Who is at risk?

While the link between suicide and mental disorders (in particular, depression and alcohol use disorders) and a previous suicide attempt is well established in high-income countries, many suicides happen impulsively in moments of crisis with a breakdown in the ability to deal with life stresses, such as financial problems, relationship break-up or chronic pain and illness.

In addition, experiencing conflict, disaster, violence, abuse, or loss and a sense of isolation are strongly associated with suicidal behaviour. Suicide rates are also high amongst vulnerable groups who experience discrimination, such as refugees and migrants; indigenous peoples; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex (LGBTI) persons; and prisoners. 

Methods of suicide

It is estimated that around 20% of global suicides are due to pesticide self-poisoning, most of which occur in rural agricultural areas in low- and middle-income countries. Other common methods of suicide are hanging and firearms.

As indicated in LIVE LIFE: An implementation guide for suicide prevention in countries, knowledge of the most commonly used suicide methods is important to devise prevention strategies which have shown to be effective, such as restriction of access to means of suicide.

Prevention and control

Suicides are preventable. There are a number of measures that can be taken at population, sub-population and individual levels to prevent suicide and suicide attempts. LIVE LIFE, WHO’s approach to suicide prevention, recommends the following key effective evidence-based interventions:

• limit access to the means of suicide (e.g. pesticides, firearms, certain medications);
• interact with the media for responsible reporting of suicide;
• foster socio-emotional life skills in adolescents; and
• early identify, assess, manage and follow up anyone who is affected by suicidal behaviours. 

These need to go hand-in-hand with the following foundational pillars: situation analysis, multisectoral collaboration, awareness raising, capacity building, financing, surveillance and monitoring and evaluation.

Suicide prevention efforts require coordination and collaboration among multiple sectors of society, including the health sector and other sectors such as education, labour, agriculture, business, justice, law, defence, politics, and the media. These efforts must be comprehensive and integrated as no single approach alone can make an impact on an issue as complex as suicide.

Challenges and obstacles

Stigma and taboo.

Stigma, particularly surrounding mental disorders and suicide, means many people thinking of taking their own life or who have attempted suicide are not seeking help and are therefore not getting the help they need. The prevention of suicide has not been adequately addressed due to a lack of awareness of suicide as a major public health problem and the taboo in many societies to openly discuss it. To date, only a few countries have included suicide prevention among their health priorities and only 38 countries report having a national suicide prevention strategy.

Raising community awareness and breaking down the taboo is important for countries to make progress in preventing suicide.

Data quality

Globally, the availability and quality of data on suicide and suicide attempts is poor. Only some 80 Member States have good-quality vital registration data that can be used directly to estimate suicide rates. This problem of poor-quality mortality data is not unique to suicide, but given the sensitivity of suicide – and the illegality of suicidal behaviour in some countries – it is likely that under-reporting and misclassification are greater problems for suicide than for most other causes of death.

Improved surveillance and monitoring of suicide and suicide attempts is required for effective suicide prevention strategies. Cross-national differences in the patterns of suicide, and changes in the rates, characteristics and methods of suicide, highlight the need for each country to improve the comprehensiveness, quality and timeliness of their suicide-related data. This includes vital registration of suicide, hospital-based registries of suicide attempts and nationally representative surveys collecting information about self-reported suicide attempts.

WHO response

WHO recognizes suicide as a public health priority. The first WHO world suicide report, Preventing suicide: a global imperative, published in 2014, aims to increase the awareness of the public health significance of suicide and suicide attempts and to make suicide prevention a high priority on the global public health agenda. It also aims to encourage and support countries to develop or strengthen comprehensive suicide prevention strategies in a multisectoral public health approach.

Suicide is one of the priority conditions in the WHO Mental Health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP) launched in 2008, which provides evidence-based technical guidance to scale up service provision and care in countries for mental, neurological and substance use disorders. In the WHO Mental Health Action Plan 2013–2030, WHO Member States have committed themselves to working towards the global target of reducing the suicide rate in countries by one third by 2030.

In addition, the suicide mortality rate is an indicator of target 3.4 of the Sustainable Development Goals: by 2030, to reduce by one third premature mortality from noncommunicable diseases through prevention and treatment, and promote mental health and well-being.

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Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS)

Testing Foods & Assessing Safety | Analytical Results | Authorized PFAS | Q&A | Announcements

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a diverse group of thousands of chemicals used in hundreds of types of products. PFAS in the environment can enter the food supply through plants and animals grown, raised, or processed in contaminated areas. It is also possible for very small amounts of PFAS to enter foods through food packaging, processing, and cookware.

Because exposure to some types of PFAS have been linked to serious health effects, we are working to better understand PFAS in foods. Since 2019, we have:

• Making available the first single lab validated scientific method for testing 30 different types of PFAS in a highly diverse sample of foods.
• Optimized our testing method for use in processed foods.
• Extended our testing method from 16 to 30 types of PFAS.
• Tested nearly 1,300 samples of foods on the U.S. market.
• Provided technical assistance to states, including testing over 400 samples from foods (not on the market) grown, raised, or processed in known areas of contamination.
• Conducted human health assessments for individual PFAS detected in 174 samples, including from foods on the U.S. market and foods tested as part of FDA’s technical assistance to states.
• Analyzed  post-market scientific data on certain short-chain PFAS and negotiated voluntary market phase-outs. In February 2024, the FDA announced that all grease-proofing agents containing PFAS are no longer being sold in the U.S.

In  2024-2025, we will continue to test foods from the general food supply, with the goal of accurately estimating U.S. consumers’ exposure to PFAS from foods. This includes testing TDS samples and a survey of bottled water.  We will also conduct additional seafood testing, including a targeted sampling assignment of filter feeders, such as clams, and other bivalve mollusks, including oysters, mussels, and scallops, and a 600-sample survey of the top ten consumed seafood species in the U.S. To expedite our testing schedule, we are taking steps to increase our lab capacity.

The results of our testing of the general food supply are summarized and posted throughout the year. If the agency finds that the level of PFAS creates a health concern about a particular food, we take action, which may include working with the manufacturer to resolve the issue and taking steps to prevent the product from entering, or remaining in, the U.S. market. For example, in 2022, two firms recalled products after FDA’s testing determined the levels of PFAS were a likely health concern.

Research, Testing & Analysis

Although PFAS have been in use for more than 80 years, scientific understanding and technical instrumentation needed to test for PFAS at very low concentrations in food only began in the last 5 years. The FDA has been leading the science in developing validated methods for testing for PFAS in increasingly diverse types of foods. We are testing for extremely low levels of these chemicals—in the parts per trillion. We have extended our testing method to increase the number of PFAS that we can test for, informed by scientific literature, and select PFAS based on their expected uptake by foods and the availability of the chemical standards to accurately identify their presence.

The FDA is also expanding our research effort by using high resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS). This will allow us to determine which additional types of PFAS, beyond those we are specifically testing for with the current method, are present in foods and should be included in targeted methods going forward.

Most of our testing of the general food supply is of samples collected for the Total Diet Study (TDS) . No PFAS have been detected in over 97% (788 out of 813) of the fresh and processed foods tested from the TDS. At least one type of PFAS was detected in 44% (14 out of 32) of the TDS seafood samples and in 74% (60 out of 81) of the samples from our 2022 targeted seafood survey. We are planning an additional targeted seafood survey in 2023-2024.

For the samples where PFAS is detected, the FDA assess each type of PFAS for which there are toxicological reference values (TRVs). There are currently eight types of PFAS with TRVs. The FDA can then determine if the exposures to those PFAS at the level measured are a health concern for young children or the general population. For PFAS that are detected for which there are no established TRVs, health risks from dietary exposure are not assessed. In addition, at this time, the FDA does not consider the possible additive effects of PFAS exposure in samples where more than one type of PFAS is detected. As the science continues to evolve on establishing additional TRVs and on cumulative exposure assessments, our conclusions regarding the potential health risks of exposure to detected PFAS may change.

For more information on our testing method and approach to assessing dietary exposure and for results from our recent sampling, please see:

• Testing Food for PFAS and Assessing Dietary Exposure
• Analytical Results of Testing Food for PFAS from Environmental Contamination

Authorized Uses of PFAS

The FDA has authorized certain PFAS for use in specific food contact applications. Some PFAS are used in cookware, food packaging, and in food processing for their non-stick and grease, oil, and water-resistant properties. To ensure food contact substances are safe for their intended use, the FDA conducts a rigorous review of scientific data prior to their authorization for market entry. The FDA’s authorization of a food contact substance requires that available data and information demonstrate that there is a reasonable certainty of no harm under the intended conditions of use.

The FDA reviews new scientific information on the authorized uses of food contact substances to ensure that these uses continue to be safe. When the FDA identifies potential safety concerns, the agency ensures that these concerns are addressed or that these substances are no longer used in food contact applications. For example, in 2020, in response to the FDA’s post-market scientific review and analysis of data raising potential safety concerns about the toxicity of food contact substances containing short-chain PFAS with 6:2 fluorotelomer alcohol (6:2 FTOH), three manufacturers committed to a 3-year market phase-out of these substances and to cease all sales of these substances in the U.S. market by December 31, 2023. In February 2024, the FDA announced that grease-proofing substances containing PFAS are no longer being sold by manufacturers for food contact use in the U.S. market.  The completion of the voluntary market phase-out of these substances used on food packaging paper and paperboard, eliminates the primary source of dietary exposure to PFAS from authorized food contact uses.

For more information on how the FDA regulates PFAS used in food contact applications and the market phase-out and withdrawals of certain PFAS, including annual updates from manufacturers, please see:

• Authorized Uses of PFAS in Food Contact Applications
• Market Phase-Out of Grease-Proofing Substances Containing PFAS

State & Federal Collaboration

State collaboration.

The FDA works with states to identify and assess the safety of locally grown and produced foods from areas with known PFAS contamination. This support occurs at the request of the states and generally takes the form of assistance with analytical testing, method development, and safety assessment consultations. The FDA has provided on-going assistance to states in their assessment of several different kinds of foods including crops for human and animal food, and animal derived foods. As appropriate to the food type, this consultation may be provided in conjunction with other federal agencies.

In addition, as part of our technical assistance to states, the FDA is contributing to research to understand how PFAS is taken up by plants, and how PFAS concentrations vary between plants and parts of a plant. This is an area of research that may help us make significant reductions in PFAS exposure from food. For example, by studying PFAS uptake, researchers may help identify plants that can be safely grown in contaminated soil without PFAS uptake to the edible portion of the plant.

Federal Collaboration

The FDA has joined the government-wide approach led by the White House to further advance progress on securing clean air, safe food, and clean drinking water. Through this collaboration with other federal agencies, we will work to identify routes of PFAS exposure, understand associated health risks, and reduce the public’s dietary exposure to PFAS that may pose a health risk.

For more information on the federal government’s approach for reducing exposure to PFAS, please see:

• Fact Sheet: Biden-⁠Harris Administration Takes Critical Action to Protect Communities from PFAS Pollution in Drinking Water (2024)
• Fact Sheet: Biden-⁠Harris Administration Takes New Action to Protect Communities from PFAS Pollution (2023)
• Fact Sheet: Biden-Harris Administration Combatting PFAS Pollution to Safeguard Clean Drinking Water for All Americans (2022)
• Fact Sheet: Biden-⁠Harris Administration Launches Plan to Combat PFAS Pollution (2021)

What Are PFAS?

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are chemicals that resist grease, oil, water, and heat. They were first used in the 1940’s and are now in hundreds of products including stain- and water-resistant fabrics and carpeting, cleaning products, paints, and fire-fighting foams. Certain PFAS are also authorized by the FDA for limited use in cookware, food packaging, and food processing equipment.

Chemically, individual PFAS can be very different. However, all have a carbon-fluorine bond, which is very strong and therefore, they do not degrade easily.

The widespread use of PFAS and their persistence in the environment means that PFAS from past and current uses have resulted in increasing levels of contamination of the air, water, and soil.

Accumulation of certain PFAS has also been shown through blood tests to occur in humans and animals. While the science surrounding potential health effects of bioaccumulation is developing, exposure to some types of PFAS have been associated with serious health effects.