The DynaHEALTH consortium's profile paper has been published in the International Journal of Epidemiology. The paper explains why the consortium was set up and what the project is about, what data is included, what has been measured, what has been found and the challenges faced. It also includes a summary of the project in a nutshell.  

Why the cohort was set up and/or unique feature(s) of the cohort

DynaHEALTH exemplifies the wealth of prospective data collected in Europe that can be harnessed to enhance our understanding of healthy ageing by modelling the relationship between glycaemic health and psychosocial factors throughout the life-course.

Location, year(s) of baseline data collection, number of participants at baseline, composition of the study population including age range

DynaHEALTH includes data on approximately 1.3 million subjects within 20 cohorts in eight European countries. Collectively, data spans the life-course from pre-conception through childhood and adulthood into older age.

Frequency of follow-up, attrition, number of participants currently in the cohort

Each individual study will adhere to its own protocol but generally we have repeated data collections during pregnancy and very early childhood. A number of studies have continued follow-up visits through to middle or old age. Other studies beginning in middle age have repeated measures relating to ageing.

Main categories of data collected

Data has been collected via clinical examinations including biological samples, brain scan images and questionnaire data relating to psychosocial variables. Many studies also include linkage to national registers

To read the full paper, please visit the publisher's website.