LucKi Birth Cohort Study: rationale and design

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Abstract

Background

Infancy and childhood are characterized by rapid growth and development, which largely determine health status and well-being across the lifespan. Identification of modifiable risk factors and prognostic factors in critical periods of life will contribute to the development of effective prevention and intervention strategies.

The LucKi Birth Cohort Study was designed and started in 2006 to follow children from birth into adulthood on a wide range of determinants, disorders, and diseases. During preschool and school years, the primary focus is on the etiology and prognosis of atopic diseases (eczema, asthma, and hay fever) and overweight/obesity.

Methods/Design

LucKi is an ongoing, dynamic, prospective birth cohort study, embedded in the Child and Youth Health Care (CYHC) practice of the ‘Westelijke Mijnstreek’ (a region in the southeast of the Netherlands). Recruitment (1–2 weeks after birth) and follow-up (until 19 years) coincide with routine CYHC contact moments, during which the child’s physical and psychosocial development is closely monitored, and anthropometrics are measured repeatedly in a standardised way. Information gathered through CYHC is complemented with repeated parental questionnaires, and information from existing registries of pharmacy, hospital and/or general practice. Since the start already more than 5,000 children were included in LucKi shortly after birth, reaching an average participation rate of ~65 %.

Discussion

The LucKi Birth Cohort Study provides a framework in which children are followed from birth into adulthood. Embedding LucKi in CYHC simplifies implementation, leads to low maintenance costs and high participation rates, and facilitates direct implementation of study results into CYHC practice. Furthermore, LucKi provides opportunities to initiate new (experimental) studies and/or to establish biobanking in (part of) the cohort, and contributes relevant information on determinants and health outcomes to policy and decision makers. Cohort details can be found on www.birthcohorts.net.

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Most cited references 8

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Worldwide trends in childhood overweight and obesity.

Youfa Wang, Tim Lobstein (2005)

Obesity has become a global epidemic but our understanding of the problem in children is limited due to lack of comparable representative data from different countries, and varying criteria for defining obesity. This paper summarises the available information on recent trends in child overweight and obesity prevalence. PubMed was searched for data relating to trends over time, in papers published between January 1980 and October 2005. Additional studies identified by citations in retrieved papers and by consultation with experts were included. Data for trends over time were found for school-age populations in 25 countries and for pre-school populations in 42 countries. Using these reports, and data collected for the World Health Organization's Burden of Disease Program, we estimated the global prevalence of overweight and obesity among school-age children for 2006 and likely prevalence levels for 2010. The prevalence of childhood overweight has increased in almost all countries for which data are available. Exceptions are found among school-age children in Russia and to some extent Poland during the 1990s. Exceptions are also found among infant and pre-school children in some lower-income countries. Obesity and overweight has increased more dramatically in economically developed countries and in urbanized populations. There is a growing global childhood obesity epidemic, with a large variation in secular trends across countries. Effective programs and policies are needed at global, regional and national levels to limit the problem among children.

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International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC): rationale and methods.

Richard Beasley, Melissa L. Anderson, Linda Asher … (1995)

The aetiology of asthma and allergic disease remains poorly understood, despite considerable research. The International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC), was founded to maximize the value of epidemiological research into asthma and allergic disease, by establishing a standardized methodology and facilitating international collaboration. Its specific aims are: 1) to describe the prevalence and severity of asthma, rhinitis and eczema in children living in different centres, and to make comparisons within and between countries; 2) to obtain baseline measures for assessment of future trends in the prevalence and severity of these diseases; and 3) to provide a framework for further aetiological research into genetic, lifestyle, environmental, and medical care factors affecting these diseases. The ISAAC design comprises three phases. Phase 1 uses core questionnaires designed to assess the prevalence and severity of asthma and allergic disease in defined populations. Phase 2 will investigate possible aetiological factors, particularly those suggested by the findings of Phase 1. Phase 3 will be a repetition of Phase 1 to assess trends in prevalence.

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Is the prevalence of asthma declining? Systematic review of epidemiological studies.

C Breda, C Anandan, U Nurmatov … (2010)

Asthma prevalence has increased very considerably in recent decades such that it is now one of the commonest chronic disorders in the world. Recent evidence from epidemiological studies, however, suggests that the prevalence of asthma may now be declining in many parts of the world, which, if true is important for health service planning and also because this offers the possibility of generating and testing new aetiological hypotheses. Our objective was to determine whether the prevalence of asthma is declining worldwide. We undertook a systematic search of EMBASE, Medline, Web of Science and Google Scholar, for high quality reports of cohort studies, repeat cross-sectional studies and analyses of routine healthcare datasets to examine international trends in asthma prevalence in children and adults for the period 1990-2008. There were 48 full reports of studies that satisfied our inclusion criteria. The large volume of data identified clearly indicate that there are, at present, no overall signs of a declining trend in asthma prevalence; on the contrary, asthma prevalence is in many parts of the world still increasing. The reductions in emergency healthcare utilization being reported in some economically developed countries most probably reflect improvements in quality of care. There remain major gaps in the literature on asthma trends in relation to Africa and parts of Asia. There is no overall global downward trend in the prevalence of asthma. Healthcare planners will for the foreseeable future, therefore, need to continue with high levels of anticipated expenditure in relation to provision of asthma care.

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Author and article information

Contributors

Dianne de Korte-de Boer: dianne.dekorte@maastrichtuniversity.nl

Monique Mommers: monique.mommers@maastrichtuniversity.nl

Huub MH Creemers: huub.creemers@ggdzl.nl

Edward Dompeling: edward.dompeling@mumc.nl

Frans JM Feron: f.feron@maastrichtuniversity.nl

Cindy ML Gielkens-Sijstermans: cindy.gielkens@ggdzl.nl

Mariëlle Jaminon: m.jaminon@orbisconcern.nl

Suhreta Mujakovic: suhreta.mujakovic@ggdzl.nl

Onno CP van Schayck: onno.vanschayck@maastrichtuniversity.nl

Carel Thijs: c.thijs@maastrichtuniversity.nl

Maria Jansen: maria.jansen@ggdzl.nl

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): BMC Public Health

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): BMC Public Health

Title: BMC Public Health

Publisher: BioMed Central (London )

ISSN (Electronic): 1471-2458

Publication date (Electronic): 21 September 2015

Publication date PMC-release: 21 September 2015

Publication date Collection: 2015

Volume: 15

Electronic Location Identifier: 934

Affiliations

[ ]Department of Epidemiology, CAPHRI School for Public Health and Primary Care, Maastricht University, PO Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands

[ ]Department of Youth Health Care, South Limburg Public Health Service, Geleen, The Netherlands

[ ]Department of Paediatric Respiratory Medicine, CAPHRI School for Public Health and Primary Care, Maastricht University Medical Centre, Maastricht, The Netherlands

[ ]Department of Social Medicine, CAPHRI School for Public Health and Primary Care, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

[ ]Department of Environmental Health, South Limburg Public Health Service, Geleen, The Netherlands

[ ]Orbis Child and Youth Health Care, Orbis Medical Concern, Sittard, The Netherlands

[ ]Department of Research and Development, South Limburg Public Health Service, Geleen, The Netherlands

[ ]Department of General Practice, CAPHRI School for Public Health and Primary Care, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

[ ]Department of Health Services Research, CAPHRI School for Public Health and Primary Care, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

Article

Publisher ID: 2255

DOI: 10.1186/s12889-015-2255-7

PMC ID: 4578419

PubMed ID: 25563658

SO-VID: 868bd2c1-3483-4d80-b2f6-b4e1ce275200

License:

Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

History

Date received : 25 July 2014

Date accepted : 11 September 2015

Custom metadata

ScienceOpen disciplines: Public health

Keywords: study protocol,birth cohort,asthma,childhood,atopic diseases,overweight,public health

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ScienceOpen disciplines: Public health

Keywords: study protocol, birth cohort, asthma, childhood, atopic diseases, overweight, public health

LucKi Birth Cohort Study: rationale and design

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Abstract

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Methods/Design

Discussion

Related collections

Chinese Journal of School Health

Most cited references 8

Worldwide trends in childhood overweight and obesity.

International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC): rationale and methods.

Is the prevalence of asthma declining? Systematic review of epidemiological studies.

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Contributors

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