Working Groups

Cohorts

Longitudinal studies are considered the gold standard in observational epidemiology.   A solid weight of scientific evidence supports the fetal origins of chronic conditions that develop later in life including cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer.  The MICYRN Canadian Birth Cohort Inventory shows that there are around 50 birth cohort studies involving about 40,000 pregnancies, in prospective, longitudinal assessment of mothers and their infants to study a wide-range of exposure-disease associations.  Better understanding of disease pathogenesis and susceptibility factors will afford the opportunity to prevent disease or reduce risk.  Not just restricted to the perinatal period, other Canadian cohorts have been formed to study outcomes of children after varied surgical management of malformations; susceptibility and resilience factors for mental health after psychosocial deprivation; or to determine biomarkers that predict drug therapy responses for immune-inflammatory disorders.

However, cohort studies are expensive to conduct, sensitive to attrition, and involve a long follow-up period to generate useful data. The value of a cohort study depends on the researchers' capacity to stay in touch with all members of the cohort, and remain on collegial terms with each other.  Some studies have continued for decades.  Cohort studies can also involve large numbers of investigators.  For example, the CIHR-Allergen National Centre of Excellence-CHILD study, underway to enroll 5000 pregnant women to study the early determinants of asthma, involves 26 different study teams, including health, social sciences, environmental hygiene, ethics, and geographical information systems.

For these reasons, MICYRN has identified Cohorts as a major research activity theme.

Outputs

  • A report from the first Canadian Birth Cohort Research Network workshop meeting in April 2009 [Reports/Cohorts] details the objectives of the network and planning for next steps.

  • During the summer of 2009, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), in partnership with MICYRN and the Strategic Knowledge Cluster on Early Childhood Development (SKC-ECD), compiled an Inventory of Pregnancy and Birth Cohort studies in Canada. [Registries/Cohort]  Details on the methodology of this review can be found at http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/40753.html.  The inventory lists Canadian cohort studies that are completed, ongoing, or in development. It provides detailed information on the content and design of such studies, and compares features amongst studies to facilitate both national and international comparisons. The format of the Canadian inventory mirrors that of the European Birth Cohort inventory in order to facilitate international comparisons.



Initiatives

  • Personal connections have been developed between the multi-disciplines of the leading investigators and key researchers involved in birth cohort studies in Canada.  Collaborations between existing cohorts will serve to standardize data collection and optimize future collaborative data analysis for the purpose of sharing research design, methods, tools of assessment (e.g., questionnaires, diet and physical activity measurements etc).
  • With the MICYRN Research Ethics and Regulatory Affairs working group, the Cohort group is obtaining expert guidance on developing a Canada-wide merger of birth cohort databases from the perspective of ethics at the regional and national levels, database management, biobanking, genetic testing, training, publication and knowledge translation.
  • With the MICYRN Training & Professional Development group, the Cohort group is developing a plan for trans-disciplinary training in research in the field of early determinants of healthy pregnancies and child development.
  • A second workshop to bring cohort investigators together is planned for 2011.

If you are interested in joining this working group or have issues to discuss, contact the co-chairs:

Dr. Alan Bocking, Chief, of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Mount Sinai Hospital, Gordon C. Leitch Chair, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Toronto,  ABocking@mtsinai.on.ca.

Dr. Stephanie Atkinson, Professor and Associate Chair (Research), Pediatrics, McMaster University  satkins@mcmaster.ca.