Cohort Profile: The Isle of Man Birth Cohort Study

Abstract

The Isle of Man is a self-governing British Crown Dependency situated equidistantly from England, Scotland and Ireland. In 1991, its population of ∼75,000 comprised ∼50% indigenous Manx and 50% immigrants, mainly from the surrounding countries. It was invited to join the European Longitudinal Study of Pregnancy and Childhood. The aim of the study was to enrol all pregnant women resident on the Island with an expected date of delivery in the 18-month period of January 1991-June 1992. A total of 1314 livebirths formed the eligible cohort. Questionnaires were completed by mothers and their partners during pregnancy and subsequently at 6 weeks, 6 months, 18 months, 3, 5, 7 and 15/16 years. Hands-on examination of the children occurred at age 7 years, when biological samples were collected. Teachers completed questionnaires at 7 and 15 years; medical records were extracted for the obstetric and childhood periods. Response rates varied from >80% from teachers and children at 15 years to only 23% from partners when their children were aged 7 years. Selected data sets are available to collaborators, although many of the data need funds for further collaboration.

Maternal prenatal blood mercury is not adversely associated with offspring IQ at 8 years provided the mother eats fish: A British prebirth cohort study

“…Third, the IQ measure used an alternate item strategy rather than the standard WISC format. As a separate validation exercise we have used the full item WISC administered at age 8 elsewhere ( Goodfellow et al, 2013 ), and selected the alternate items in that scale; comparing the resulting IQ with the full IQ measure gives excellent correlation coefficients of 0.965, 0.954 and 0.943 for the three scales, respectively. Fourth, the information on the mother’s diet was obtained in the third trimester, several months after the blood sample was taken.…”

Cohort Profile: The European Longitudinal Study of Pregnancy and Childhood (ELSPAC) in the Czech Republic

“…1 The study was initiated by the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe in 1985, with the aim to enrol 40 000 children across Europe. Seven independent centres—ALSPAC, 2 Isle of Man, 3 the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine, 4 Greece and Russia—joined the project, coordinated by Professor Golding at Bristol University, UK. The coordination centre was also responsible for most of the protocol development, including follow-up planning and questionnaire design.…”

Comparison of Dietary Intakes of 7-Year-Old Children Enrolled in Observational Birth Cohort Studies on the Isle of Man and in South-West England

“…The two main communities of the native Manx and the “incomers” were represented (see footnote to Table 1 ). Previous research has found the island to be a good location for studies, generating reliable results and well suited to epidemiological research [ 10 ]; however, the size of the cohort is relatively small compared with other similar studies, including ALSPAC. Dietary analysis for the IoM was further constrained by the availability of only a proportion of paper records for checking against the coded food records; therefore, the number of food records for the IoM ( n = 490) was considerably smaller than for ALSPAC ( n = 7087) and was slightly less representative of the population.…”

“…At the age of 7 years there was an additional phase of recruitment to cover all children who had subsequently moved to the IoM ( Figure 1 ). Full details of the data collection in IoM and a study flowchart can be accessed from the cohort profile [ 10 ] and at the study website [ 11 ].…”