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IJE Advance Access published online on June 26, 2009
International Journal of Epidemiology, doi:10.1093/ije/dyp240
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Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association © The Author 2009; all rights reserved.

Editorial

Birth cohort studies: past, present and future

Debbie A Lawlor1,*, Anne-Marie Nybo Andersen2 and G David Batty3,4,5

1Department of Social Medicine, MRC Centre for Causal Analyses in Translational Epidemiology, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK.
2Epidemiology, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.
3Medical Research Council Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK.
4Department of Psychology, Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK.
5The George Institute for International Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia.

*Corresponding author. Department of Social Medicine, MRC Centre for Causal Analyses in Translational Epidemiology, University of Bristol, Oakfield House, Oakfield Grove, Bristol BS8 2BN, UK. E-mail: d.a.lawlor@bristol.ac.uk

Keywords Birth cohorts, family studies, causality

Accepted 28 May 2009

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Life is to be understood backwards, but it is lived forwards.

            [Livet skal forstaaes baglaens, men leves forlaens]

            Søren Kierkegaard, Danish Philosopher, 1813–55

There is considerable interest in the suggestion that exposures acting in early life, together with those accumulating in adulthood, and even between generations, have long-term consequences for health in adulthood.1 Potential early-life factors that might impact on adult health, include those acting during (or before) the period of fetal development (such as endocrine disruptors, maternal diet, smoking or alcohol), those in infancy (such as breast- or bottle feeding, exposure to moulds and damp) and those acting in childhood and adolescence (such as environmental toxins, diet and levels of physical activity, passive exposure to tobacco smoke and own initiation of smoking and alcohol consumption). Nearly all domains of later health experience, including cardiovascular disease, various cancers, respiratory disease, cognitive decline and psychological health, have been associated with early-life . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Data for now and the future

Family matters

Birth cohorts in low- and middle-income countries matter

Establishing causality matters

The future


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