Food for Thought? The Lifeways Cross-Generation Cohort Study 2001-2012
Prof. Cecily Kelleher will present the Seminar "Food for Thought? The Lifeways Cross-Generation Cohort Study 2001-2012" at 4pm on Tuesday 8th of May as part of the Centre for Longitudinal Studies in Ireland (CLSI) seminar series.
The Lifeways Cross-Generation Cohort Study follows a thousand families in the Republic of Ireland. The study was first established in 2000 to study the pattern of and determinants of socio-economic health inequalities in Ireland and was funded for its first five years by the Health Research Board (HRB). The design of the cohort is particularly innovative with data gathered from three generations of respondents: data on expectant mothers, their partners and the mother’s parents prior to birth, data on child following birth and when child was 3 and 5 years of age. Data collection is in process and will be completed in 2012. The current data sweep will include biological samples for the first time.
Findings to date include strong social gradients both in traditionally established health and lifestyle risk factors and in selected outcome measures. A number of analyses have been undertaken or published to date for the different sweeps of the study including the determinants of self rated health in the pregnant mother, child’s birth weight, general practitioner utilisation at 3 year follow-up, asthma in the child by the age of three and of factors influencing uptake of both primary and measles mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccinations. Lifeways was also one of the first cohort reports to show that MMR uptake was lower in reported users of alternative medicines. Immunisation uptake rates similarly relate to social position. Diagnosed asthma by the age of three is both socially determined but also related to maternal diet during pregnancy after adjusting for the effect of social class. Since these findings were published a growing body of evidence suggests an association between fruit and vegetable consumption and childhood asthma and support of the hypothesis that antenatal exposures influence neonatal allergen responses.
The findings from the study reinforce and replicate findings from the international literature and provide important evidence for Irish health policy, particularly in relation to food and nutrition.
The CLSI is one of the key initiatives under the strategic partnership between Trinity College Dublin and the ESRI.
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