Study title

The unique multigenerational data base, Uppsala Birth Cohort Multigeneration Study (UBCoS), was established in 2004 by combining existing data on a representative and well-defined cohort of 14,192 males and females born in Uppsala from 1915-1929 with information on descendants of the original cohort members obtained from routine data registers. To date, the study has been further developed by additional data collection in school archives and records from Census 1930 and the period of follow-up extended till end of year 2010. Further data collection is currently ongoing. The study is unique in investigating intergenerational effects as "forward in time" processes, starting at the beginning of the last century (i.e. well before any of the routine registers were in place). Intergenerational associations can be currently investigated in more than 140,000 study subjects from families spanning up to five generations, including the 14,192 original cohort members, their 22,559 children, 38,771 grandchildren and 25,471 great grandchildren. The main research objectives are to: (i) Address questions of the extent to which and the mechanisms whereby social advantage and disadvantage are transmitted from one generation to the next, giving rise to continuity in social disadvantage both over the life cycle and across generations. (ii) Explore how early social and biological factors are transmitted from the parent generation to offspring generation(s). (iii) Integrate the understanding of broader social mechanisms with the understanding of disease specific aetiology to answer the question of how, and to what extent, health inequalities are reproduced into each new generation. Purpose: The aim of the study is to investigate life course and intergenerational determinants of social inequalities in health. Number of participants: 14,192 original cohort together with >140,000 family members.