Abstract
BackgroundThe Environments for Healthy Living (EFHL) study is a repeated sample, longitudinal birth cohort in South East Queensland, Australia. We describe the sample characteristics and profile of maternal, household, and antenatal exposures. Variation and data stability over recruitment years were examined.MethodsFour months each year from 2006, pregnant women were recruited to EFHL at routine antenatal visits on or after 24 weeks gestation, from three public maternity hospitals. Participating mothers completed a baseline questionnaire on individual, familial, social and community exposure factors. Perinatal data were extracted from hospital birth records. Descriptive statistics and measures of association were calculated comparing the EFHL birth sample with regional and national reference populations. Data stability of antenatal exposure factors was assessed across five recruitment years (2006–2010 inclusive) using the Gamma statistic for ordinal data and chi-squared for nominal data.ResultsAcross five recruitment years 2,879 pregnant women were recruited which resulted in 2904 live births with 29 sets of twins. EFHL has a lower representation of early gestational babies, fewer still births and a lower percentage of low birth weight babies, when compared to regional data. The majority of women (65%) took a multivitamin supplement during pregnancy, 47% consumed alcohol, and 26% reported having smoked cigarettes. There were no differences in rates of a range of antenatal exposures across five years of recruitment, with the exception of increasing maternal pre-pregnancy weight (p=0.0349), decreasing rates of high maternal distress (p=0.0191) and decreasing alcohol consumption (p<0.0001).ConclusionsThe study sample is broadly representative of births in the region and almost all factors showed data stability over time. This study, with repeated sampling of birth cohorts over multiple years, has the potential to make important contributions to population health through evaluating longitudinal follow-up and within cohort temporal effects.Trial registrationAustralian and New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12610000931077
Highlights
The Environments for Healthy Living (EFHL) study is a repeated sample, longitudinal birth cohort in South East Queensland, Australia
While public health researchers and practitioners recognise the importance of a multilevel, ecological model of disease causation and health promotion, [4,5] there has been limited research successfully quantifying these relationships in way that can support population based interventions [6]
Environments for Healthy Living (EFHL) is a birth cohort study being conducted in South East Queensland, Australia, designed to operationalise the ecological model of disease causation [5] and provide information required to develop policy driven improvements in population health
Summary
The Environments for Healthy Living (EFHL) study is a repeated sample, longitudinal birth cohort in South East Queensland, Australia. In order to advance the ecological understanding of disease causation, epidemiological research needs to be able to quantify the contextual factors as well as the proximal risk factors responsible for relevant health outcomes. Environments for Healthy Living (EFHL) is a birth cohort study being conducted in South East Queensland, Australia, designed to operationalise the ecological model of disease causation [5] and provide information required to develop policy driven improvements in population health. With a planned total cohort of nearly 4000 mother/ infant dyads being recruited from a circumscribed study region, comprising communities across a broad range of socioeconomic exposures, this study has the capacity to address questions of contemporary importance
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