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The aim of GS: SFHS is to establish a large, family-based intensively-phenotyped cohort recruited from the general population across Scotland, as a resource for studying the genetics of health areas of current and projected public health importance. It aims to identify genetic variants accounting for variation in levels of quantitative traits underlying the major common complex diseases (such as cardiovascular disease, cognitive decline, mental illness) in Scotland.

Baseline data was collected at a single clinic visit. Longitudinal data is available by linkage to NHS medical records. Some participants are being invited to new clinic visits in 2015-17. This profile also includes scanning information from the Stratifying Resilience and Depression Longitudinally (STRADL) study to which approximately 1500 GS participants are being invited for scanning.

Last Update 21/09/2017

The Lc65+ project is a longitudinal population-based study focusing on the development of frailty after the age of 65. The main methods in the Lc65+ study are:

ﾕ long term observation of subjects, beginning at 65 to 70 years, an age when frailty is still unusual, in order to study its initiation and development;
ﾕ prospective data collection on a large range of health dimensions, including psycho-social characteristics, in order to investigate the temporal sequence linking frailty, its risk factors, modulators, and outcomes:
ﾕ a population approach considering frailty as a central parameter of health in ageing populations that is useful not only for surveillance, but also for the evaluation of preventive interventions.

Follow-up is based on a yearly questionnaire sent by mail to the participant’s home. In addition, subjects are invited to the study center every three years for an interview and examination similar to those performed at baseline. The follow-up is unlimited in time and is not interrupted in the case of nursing home admission.

Last Update 21/09/2017

The Older Australian Twins Study is a longitudinal, multi-centre study that investigates healthy brain ageing in older twins (65+ years). OATS commenced in New South Wales in January 2007, in Queensland in December 2007, and in Victoria in February 2008. Since the OATS study started we have followed our twin volunteers up every two years to check on their psychological and physical health. Participants undergo rigorous medical and cognitive function tests, with many participants’ also providing bloods samples and having a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan of their brain. In 2015 we finished our 4-year follow ups. OATS assessed 623 participants at baseline, 450 at the 2-year follow up, and 389 completed their 4-year follow-up.

Last Update 21/09/2017

The Puerto Rican Elderly: Health Conditions (PREHCO) study investigates issues affecting the elderly (individuals over 60 years of age) population in Puerto Rico: health status, housing arrangements, functional status, transfers, labor history, migration, income, childhood characteristics, health insurance, use of health services, marital history, mistreat, sexuality, etc. It is an island-wide, longitudinal sample survey of target individuals and their spouses with two waves of data collection: 2002-2003 and 2006-2007.

In the first phase of the PREHCO project, 4,291 elderly persons 60 years or older and 1,442 spouses were interviewed (1,042 of the latter being 60 years or older). A second wave of the project (2006-2007) converted PREHCO in a longitudinal study. In the second wave, those same participants were asked to do a follow-up survey, in which 3,891 target interviews and 1,260 spouse interviews were completed. The deceased and institutionalized participants were also interviewed using a proxy.

Last Update 21/09/2017

The Rhineland Study is a prospective cohort study, which began in March 2016. It will include up to 30,000 participants from Bonn and asses their physical and mental health over their lifespan. The study is scheduled to run for decades and participants will be re-examined every 3-4 years.

As neurodegenerative diseases and their pathologies develop over a long time before first symptoms start to show, the Rhineland Study will include men and women aged 30 years and above regardless of their health status.
The main aims of the study are:

1. To investigate modifiable and non-modifiable causes of neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric diseases
2. To find biomarkers/(multimodal) biomarker profiles to identify individuals at risk for neurodegenerative or neuropsychiatric disease, who might benefit from preventive interventions
3. To investigate (patho)physiology over the adult life course, with specific emphasis on brain-related outcomes.

Last Update 21/09/2017

For 30 years (since 1987) tracks the health of a group of randomly selected adult Dutch inhabitants of Doetinchem from originally between 20-60 years. This provides a wealth of information of four generations: 20-29, 30-39, 40-49 and 50-60 year olds. The name of this study is the Doetinchem Cohort Study. Every five years the health and habits of the participants are examined at the local health department.

The purpose of the Doetinchem Cohort Study is to give insight into trends in lifestyle and health. So there will be more and more knowledge about why some people age without many problems, while others have health problems at an early age. The study collects data on:

  • Lifestyle habits: exercise, diet, smoking, alcohol consumption;
  • Biological factors: blood pressure, cholesterol, (over) weight;
  • Several specific diseases: cardiovascular disease, asthma, COPD , diabetes, cancer, migraine, musculoskeletal;
  • Quality of life: cognitive functioning, social participation, psychosocial aspects of health.

The aim of the Alfa Study is to focus on the processes taking place before the initiation of Alzheimer’s symptoms in order to design interventions to prevent or delay the onset of dementia. Inclusion criteria were being cognitively normal Spanish and/or Catalan-speaking persons aged between 45 and 74 years that agreed with the study procedures and tests: clinical interview and questionnaires associated to risk factors, cognitive tests, a blood sample extraction for DNA analysis, and MRI.

A subset (n=450) of the ALFA parent cohort participants are currently being recruited / undergoing a nested longitudinal long-term study, named the ALFA+ study, in which a more detailed phenotyping will be performed. On top of a similar characterization as in the ALFA parent cohort, it will entail the acquisition of both wet (CSF, blood, and urine sample collection) and imaging (magnetic resonance imaging [MRI] and PET) biomarkers. Furthermore, ALFA parent cohort participants may also be invited to participate in other BBRC studies such the ALFAlife primary intervention study (n=400) or the full genetic and neuroimaging characterisation study referred to as ALFAgenetics (n=2000).

Last Update 21/09/2017

BiB – Children
Recruitment Period: 2007-11
Sample size at start or planned sample size if still recruiting: 13,857
Estimated current sample size: 13,500
Age at recruitment: 0

BiB – Mothers
Start date: 2006-10
Sample size at start or planned sample size if still recruiting: 12,453
Estimated current sample size: 12,000
Age at recruitment: 15-49

BiB – Fathers
Start date: 2006-10
Sample size at start or planned sample size if still recruiting: 3,414
Estimated current sample size: 3,000
Age at recruitment: 16-60

Born in Bradford is a long term study of a population cohort of 13,500 children, born at Bradford Royal Infirmary between March 2007 and December 2010, whose health is being tracked from pregnancy through childhood and into adult life. The information collected from the BiB families is being used to find the causes of common childhood illnesses and to explore the mental and social development of this new generation.

The Born in Bradford cohort study offers a unique window of opportunity to initiate an innovative and multidisciplinary programme of research. By recruiting pregnant women, their partners and their newborn babies to the cohort, this study offers the potential to:

  • assess the determinants of childhood and adult disease
  • assess the impact of migration
  • explore the influences of pregnancy and childbirth on subsequent health
  • generate and test hypotheses that have the potential to improve health for some of the most disadvantaged within our society.

The Bradford community provides a unique setting for a birth cohort study exploring the determinants of childhood and adult disease because of its diversity of population and high levels of ill-health.

Last Update 21/09/2017

The original aim of the Metropolit cohort was to follow men from early school age to early mid-life, to explore intergenerational mobility and differential life-chances. In 2001 the cohort was revitalised in order to study the development of chronic diseases in a life course perspective.
The Metropolit cohort comprises all 11532 men born in 1953 in the Copenhagen Metropolitan area who were living in Denmark in 1968. These men have been followed repeatedly since their birth. In brief, we have data from birth certificates (1953) which include information on birth dimensions and father’s occupation. In 1965, 7,987 participated in a school-based survey and completed tests of cognition and enquiries regarding leisure-time activities and social aspirations. Data from draft board examinations at around age 19 have been collected for 11,108 of the men. These data include cognitive testing and health information. In 2004, 6,292 of the men responded to a mailed questionnaire with questions on health and lifestyle. In 2009-2010, 2486 of 7799 eligible cohort members participated in the Copenhagen Ageing Midlife Biobank (CAMB) study which comprised questionnaires, cognitive and physical testing as well as blood sampling. Further, around 300 men selected on their young adult and current cognitive performance have been through a neurophysiological examination including EEG, MRI, fMRI and sleep tests. The cohort has also been followed in nation-wide social and health registers for social life, medical and mental hospital diagnosis as well as cause of death from 1969 to 2016.

Last Update 21/09/2017

The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) is a large-scale, nationally representative, longitudinal study on ageing in Ireland, the overarching aim of which is to make Ireland the best place in the world to grow old.
TILDA collects information on all aspects of health, economic and social circumstances from people aged 50 and over in a series of data collection waves once every two years. TILDA is unique amongst longitudinal studies in the breadth of physical, mental health and cognitive measures collected. This data, together with the extensive social and economic data, makes TILDA one of the most comprehensive research studies of its kind both in Europe and internationally.

Last Update 21/09/2017