Born in Bradford

Duration

2006-

Coordinator

John Wright, Bradford Institute for Health Research

Funded by

NERC

Born in Bradford is a groundbreaking research project that will follow the lives of over 10,000 Bradford babies over the next 20 years.

Born in Bradford is a cohort study. These are a special type of research projects where a group of people with something in common are followed for a period of time to find out what factors affect them. In birth cohort studies, like Born in Bradford, the cohort have their time and place of birth in common – in our case all the babies born in the city in the two years from autumn 2006.

Factors recorded by Born in Bradford researchers in pregnancy or early life may prove to be related to illnesses or other problems later on. This information will help us to understand why our children become ill, and might open up exciting ways of treating and preventing illness.

A large birth cohort study can answer questions that smaller, randomised trials cannot, and also are more likely to reveal the complex interaction of various influences that affect health in the long term.

One disadvantage of cohort studies is that they take a long time to complete. Instead of having a defined end-point to the study, information is slowly revealed over many years as the participants get older. This is why Born in Bradford needs commitment and enthusiasm to be successful not only from the researchers and health workers running the study, but from everyone in Bradford.