Familial insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) epidemiology: standardization of data for the DIAMOND Project. The WHO Multinational Project for Childhood Diabetes Group.

The WHO Multinational Project for Childhood Diabetes, known as the DIAMOND Project, has been responsible for establishing insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) registries and for carrying out diabetes incidence studies, descriptive epidemiological research, and analytical investigations which are being used to test specific hypotheses regarding the etiology of the disease. Standardized epidemiological data are being collected from countries around the world, permitting international comparisons between registries. Multinational studies are also beginning to investigate the potential genetic determinants of the disease, and are contributing to the development of familial IDDM epidemiology worldwide. The development of standards for data collection of IDDM family histories is important for multinational studies of IDDM recurrence risks in families, descriptive analyses of patterns of familial aggregation, and comparative analytical investigations of specific etiological determinants of IDDM in relatives. These activities are being implemented through the DIAMOND Project.