Batty G D
MRC Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK.
Braz J Med Biol Res. 2007 Sep;40(9):1159-62. doi: 10.1590/s0100-879x2007000900001.
More than any other low- and middle-income country, Brazil has the longest research tradition of establishing, maintaining and exploiting birth cohort studies. This research pedigree is highlighted in the present issue of the Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research, which contains a series of twelve papers from the Ribeirão Preto and São Luis birth cohort studies from the Southeast and Northeast of Brazil, respectively. The topics covered in this raft of reports vary and include predictors of perinatal health and maternal risk factors, early life determinants of cardiovascular risk factors in childhood and adolescence, use of health services, and a description of dietary characteristics of young adults, amongst other topics. There is also a guide to the background, objectives, sampling and protocols employed across these studies, which, together with similar pieces published in past issues of the Brazilian Journal, serve as a very useful starting point, particularly for potential collaborators. In the fervent hope that further follow-up of these cohorts will take place--we provide our own justification for cohort maintenance and extension in this issue--future data collection could include: genetic material, atherosclerosis, ascertained, for instance, by intima-media thickness, and IQ testing in children--scores from which are emerging as potentially important predictors of adult health outcomes up to six decades later.
与其他低收入和中等收入国家相比，巴西在建立、维持和开展出生队列研究方面拥有最长的研究传统。巴西《医学与生物学研究杂志》本期突出展示了这一研究谱系，其中包含分别来自巴西东南部里贝朗普雷图和东北部圣路易斯出生队列研究的一系列十二篇论文。这大量报告所涵盖的主题各不相同，包括围产期健康的预测因素和孕产妇风险因素、儿童及青少年心血管危险因素的早期生活决定因素、卫生服务的使用情况，以及青年成年人饮食特征的描述等其他主题。此外，还有一份关于这些研究的背景、目标、抽样方法和所采用方案的指南，该指南与巴西《医学与生物学研究杂志》往期发表的类似内容一起，成为了一个非常有用的起点，尤其对潜在合作者而言。我们热切希望能对这些队列进行进一步随访——我们在本期为队列的维持和扩展提供了自己的理由——未来的数据收集可以包括：遗传物质、动脉粥样硬化（例如通过内膜中层厚度来确定），以及儿童的智商测试——儿童的智商测试分数正逐渐成为六十多年后成人健康结果的潜在重要预测指标。
