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AWHS is a prospective, longitudinal cohort study based on the annual health exams of 5,688 workers of the General Motors Spain automobile assembly plant located in Figueruelas (Zaragoza, Spain). The study was designed to evaluate the trajectories of traditional and emergent cardiovascular diseases (CVD) risk factors (overweight, obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, smoking, dietary habits or sedentary lifestyle), and their association with metabolic abnormalities and the prevalence and progression of subclinical atherosclerosis in a population of middle-aged men and women in Spain.

The specific aims of AWHS are:

1. To establish the research infrastructure required for a longitudinal cohort study, including setting up a biobank of repeated biological samples to conduct future assays in stored serum, plasma, whole blood, urine and DNA.

2. To identify new genetic, behavioural, and environmental determinants of the progression of adiposity and of the development of metabolic abnormalities and cardiovascular risk factors.

3. To characterize the prevalence and progression of subclinical CVD through non-invasive imaging techniques and their genetic, behavioural, and environmental determinants.

4. To interact with external investigators to promote the use of the study database and stored materials for ancillary studies and to disseminate the study findings to the scientific community, to public health authorities, and to the general public.

To collect data, factory workers undergo a standardized annual clinical exam, providing a clinical history, including clinical events and hospitalizations over the past year and current medication use, and undergo a physical exam, consisting of anthropometry (height, weight, and waist circumference), blood pressure measurements and heart rate, as well as laboratory assays, providing biological samples including serum, plasma, blood, urine and DNA. Data collection at the annual medical exams is conducted by the physicians and nurses of the Medical Services of General Motors Spain, who underwent training and standardization programs organized by the study investigators.

Each year, one random third of study participants 40 ﾖ55 years of age at baseline (n=2667) are selected for subclinical atherosclerosis imaging (Cardiac CT for Calcium Scoring, 2D ultrasound of carotid arteries, infrarenal aorta and femoral arteries), and for additional questionnaires of cardiovascular and lifestyle factors (dietary habits, sedentary, physical activity and sleep).

On September 2017, a substudy will begin with the aim of identifying early cognitive impairment in workers over 55 years of age, by using specific questionnaires and gene screening (Apo E).

Workers were excluded from the cohort if they have clinically overt CVD, or a major clinical condition limiting survival to <3 years at baseline. All laboratory procedures have been reviewed and improved to meet the ISO 9001:2008 standard, verified by an external audit.

Last Update 21/09/2017

The EADC-PET project (EAPP, The European Alzheimer’s Disease Consortium PET project) is a spontaneous multicentric study (ProtocolDraftSep2008; ProtocolDraftFeb2009) involving at the moment five Centres in four Countries (CENTRES), belonging to the EADC consortium. It was launched during the EADC meeting in Amsterdam, during fall 2007, by Flavio Nobili (Genoa) who is the Principal Investigator.

The project aims at sharing FDG-PET, MRI, neuropsychological, genetic, EEG and clinical information of patients with amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (aMCI) and matched healthy controls. Information is uploaded in a safe FTP facility on the server of University of Genoa. Username and password have been provided to all participants. Use of data is regulated by a ‘Confidentiality Disclosure Agreement’ that can be downloaded from this web site (Confidential_Disclosure_Agreement). The Centres propose original studies by sending a formal proposal to all participants who can agree or disagree, or propose modifications/suggestions to the original proposal.

The objective is to follow-up aMCI patients with clinical and neuropsychological examinations to pick up conversion to Alzheimer’s dementia or to other forms of dementia. FDG-PET can be analyzed by means of several post-processing strategies to highlight glucose metabolic information and to identify the characteristics of what is today called ‘prodromal’ AD.

Last Update 21/09/2017

The EVA study was a 9-year longitudinal study with 6 waves of follow-ups. During the two-year period 1991-1993 (EVA0), 1389 men and women born between 1922 and 1932 were recruited.

The aim is to investigate vascular ageing, decline in brain and cognitive function and associated factors with a longitudinal follow-up study. The secondary objective is to determine to role of biological factors linked with oxidative stress and brain ageing.
Inclusion criteria Subjects from both genders born between 1922 and 1932 (59 to 71 years old at enrolment), included in electoral registers in Nantes, can speak French and living in Nantes.

Last Update 21/09/2017

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 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 rpAD study is a longitudinal study, which recruits patients from the entire federal territory. In addition, patients from the Clinical Dementia Centre are recruited at the Neurological and Psychiatric Clinic of the University Medical Center of G’ttingen, with these usually classical clinical forms being internal controls. The aim of the study is to characterize the biological factors and parameters that define the disease progression in AD.

After the patient is informed and consent is given, the inclusion examination is carried out. It includes a detailed history and anamnesis as well as a physical examination, which includes an in-depth examination of the neurological status. A neuropsychological test for cognitive testing is performed using the CERAD-plus test battery. Furthermore, the GDS score is obtained, which allows an assessment of the severity of the cognitive deficits by means of a 7-stage classification. The ADL score is used to assess the activities of daily life (Lawton and Brody 1969).

Six months after the initial examination, a telephone follow-up is carried out. Further investigations are carried out on an annual basis and correspond to the initial examination.

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 Children of the 1950s study is a population-based resource for the study of biological and social influences on health across the life-course and between generations.

Comprising individuals born in Aberdeen, Scotland between 1950 and 1956, this cohort is based on the 12,150 people who took part in the Aberdeen Child Development Survey, a cross-sectional study in a population of all children who were attending an Aberdeen primary school in December 1962. The data collected include information on birth weight, childhood height and weight, tests of cognition and behavioural disorder, and a range of multi-level socio-economic indicators.

In the early 2000s the current vital status and whereabouts of 98.5% of the 12,150 subjects (6276 males, 5874 females) with full baseline data were ascertained. The large majority (81%) of study participants still resided in Scotland and the majority (73%) remained in the Grampian region which incorporates Aberdeen.

Linkages to hospital admissions and other health endpoints captured through the routine Scottish Morbidity Records system have been completed. A postal questionnaire to all surviving cohort members was distributed in 2001, with a response proportion of 63%.

The cohort database is now maintained as a resource for researchers, with over 40 publications to data resulting from interrogation of the data.

Last Update 21/09/2017