Increasing evidence suggests that early life and reproductive events, including specific pregnancy complications, predict future health risks including cardiovascular (CVD) risk factors (e.g., dyslipidemia, hypertension, obesity), clinical CVD events, and obstructive lung disease. Similarly, increasing evidence suggests that exposures during pregnancy may affect offspring?s cardiovascular and lung health throughout life. In this application, we propose to strengthen the infrastructure necessary to collect data on traditional and emerging risk factors for heart and lung diseases and to document the occurrence of these conditions within three related cohorts: the Nurses? Health Study II (NHS-II), the Nurses? Health Study 3 (NHS3), and the Growing Up Today Study (GUTS). These cohorts collectively follow 188,698 individuals including more than 14,000 minority participants with large numbers of African Americans and Hispanic Americans. The cohorts also follow more than 65,000 mother-adult offspring pairs, over 13,000 grandmother-mother-adult child triads and over 16,000 sib-groups; resources that facilitate research aimed at identifying inter-generational risk factors for CVD and obstructive lung diseases. Women in the two younger cohorts (NHS3 and GUTS) are in the middle of the reproductive years, resulting in the accrual of approximately 1,000 new pregnancies per year. Furthermore, study participants are broadly distributed across the United States, giving us the ability to address questions regarding rural populations including areas considered to be Frontier. The proposed infrastructure activities in these three related cohorts will ultimately support research aimed at identifying intergenerational and early life risk factors for CVD (CHD, stroke) and obstructive lung disease (COPD and asthma), as well as of relevant biologic intermediate endpoints, from genes to geography. We will focus our efforts in four areas: 1) the maximization of existing resources ? including updating and maintenance of food composition databases and geographically-linked exposure data based on geographical information systems (GIS), 2) the collection of biological specimens tied to an in-person collection of blood pressure and anthropometric data, 3) the expansion of web-based mobile technology and ?Big Data? capabilities for the cohorts, and 4) strengthening our capability for data sharing. The ability to combine biomarker data, state-of- the-art mobile high-resolution measures, and traditional epidemiologic risk factor data, collected across generations and throughout the life-course in three related cohorts will enable us and others to conduct powerful etiologic and translational research. Our goal is to maintain the quality of follow-up and associated data, as well as to broaden the technologies that would provide innovative dimensions to the cohort for novel scientific discovery.
Increasing evidence suggests that early life and reproductive events, as well as exposures during pregnancy, may have long-term impacts cardiovascular and lung health of women and their children but most cohorts are not well equipped to support research addressing these questions. We propose to strengthen the shared infrastructure necessary to support research aimed at identifying intergenerational, reproductive and early life risk factors for CVD (CHD, stroke) and obstructive lung disease (COPD and asthma) in three cohorts ? the Nurses? Health Study II (NHS-II), the Growing Up Today Study (GUTS) and the Nurses? Health Study 3 (NHS3) ? by focusing in four areas: 1) the maximization of existing resources, 2) the collection of biological specimens and in-person measurements of blood pressure and anthropometric data, 3) the expansion of web-based mobile technology and ?Big Data? capabilities for the cohorts, and 4) strengthening our capability for data sharing. The ability to combine biomarker data, state-of-the-art mobile high-resolution measures, and traditional epidemiologic risk factor data, collected across generations and throughout the life-course in three related cohorts will enable us and others to conduct powerful etiologic and translational research.
