ALSPAC: A reference population for genetic & environmental epidemiology

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The Avon Longitudinal Study of Pregnancy & Childhood (ALSPAC) is a recent population-based study designed to understand the ways in which the physical and social environment interact, over time, with the genotype to affect health, behaviour and development. The ALSPAC design offers special advantages, the most important being - enrolment in early pregnancy, banking of DNA from the children and parents (permitting genetic transmission tests and transgenerational imprinting studies); diverse environmental measures both physical and psychological; one geographical base (permitting medical record and school linkage; environmental measures in the home, and clinics for direct examination); an intensely studied 10% subset - the Children in Focus (permitting detailed hands-on follow-up, validation of questionnaire data from the cohort, and practice for the 7-8 year examinations on the full cohort). The 14,893 enrolled pregnancies (EDD 1.4.91 - 31.12.92) represented about 85% of the eligible population and 14,138 children (13,995 mothers) are being followed principally by questionnaires completed by parents (227,151 returned of the 280,373 sent) with plans for a ‘physical examination at 7 years and a ‘psychological‘ one at 8 years. A study of this complexity is highly collaborative (including topic-specific international workshops) and the academic cohesion needed to fully exploit this valuable national resource would be enhanced by acceptance as a Co-operative Group.