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The Limache cohort was set up to assess the programming and life course events hypotheses in relation to cardiovascular risk factors and chronic respiratory conditions, especially asthma, in the context of an unprecedented economic growth in Chile. The cohort was a representative sample of 1,232 participants born between 1974 and 1978 in the hospital of Limache. The study includes data collected at birth, during the 1st year of life, at 22 to 28 years (collected between 2000 and 2002) and at 32 to 38 years (collected between 2010 and 2012).

This was possible because details were collected for all births in the country including duration of gestation, birthweight and birth length. Limache, a semirural agricultural area relatively near Santiago and close to Viña del Mar and Valparaíso, was chosen because: a birth register in the hospital has been kept since the 1970s; paediatric clinical records were kept in the local hospital ; and there was demographic information that emigration from this area was low so that we would be able to find most participants born in the 1970s still living in Limache and in Olmué, a neighbouring area.