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Date of filling in this questionnaire or last update: 11/11/2020
1. IDENTIFICATION & BASIC DESCRIPTION
Cohort name
  EPIC-NL
Country
 

  • Netherlands
Name
  Monique Verschuren
Institution
  Department for Determinants of Chronic Diseases of the National Institute of Public Health and the Environment
Email
  monique.verschuren@rivm.nl
Do you want to add another Principal Investigator of the Cohort
 

  • Add another Principal Investigator of the cohort
Name
  Roel Vermeulen
Institution
  Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care of the University Medical Center Utrecht (UMCU)
Email
  r.c.h.vermeulen@uu.nl
Website
 

  • https://www.epicnl.eu/Home/EPICNL
Or provide website
 

  • https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyp217
Data access policy (briefly describe)
  We welcome collaborative research on the data of the EPIC-NL study. For more information, you can check our website at: www.epicnl.eu; or mail us at: info@epicnl.eu.
Is this cohort part of a consortium? (name consortium)
  The European Prospective Investigation Into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) was initiated in 10 European countries to create a large cohort to study the aetiology of chronic diseases.
Participation in pooled analyses
 

  • The cohort is potentially interested in participating in pooled analyses of (European) occupational cohort studies (note pooled analyses also includes remote decentralized analyses that would not require any transfer of primary data as well as meta-analyses).
Main aim of cohort, please briefly describe the main objectives of the cohort
  Initially, the aim of the EPIC study was to investigate the role of nutrition in the aetiology of cancer. The Prospect cohort was set up in this context to investigate the role of nutrition in the aetiology of cancer, whereas the MORGEN cohort had a broader goal to monitor risk factors for chronic diseases in the Netherlands. In addition to nutrition, both Dutch cohorts also focused on other lifestyle factors, such as smoking, alcohol and physical activity, whereas reproductive factors were more extensively assessed in the Prospect cohort and occupational factors in the MORGEN cohort. Now, the focus of the international EPIC study has broadened to include most major chronic diseases as an endpoint, such as obesity, cardiovascular diseases5 and type 2 diabetes
Study design (please select as many as appropriate)
 

  • Prospective cohort
Source population (please select as many as appropriate)
 

  • General population: National
  • General population: Regional
Comparators (please select as many as appropriate)
 

  • Internal study population
Inclusion criteria
  Prospect cohort: women aged 49–70, residing in the city of Utrecht or its vicinity, who participated in the nation wide Dutch breast cancer screening programme between 1993 and 1997. Morgen cohort: men and women aged 20–59 years from three Dutch towns (Amsterdam, Doetinchem and Maastricht)
Enrollment
  Completed
Age range at entry (main cohort)
 

Minimum Maximum Mean
20 70 49 ± 12

Men at enrollment
  10260
Women at enrollment
  29751
Participation rate at enrollment (if known)
  40
Comments
  The Netherlands has contributed two cohort studies to EPIC: the Prospect cohort of 17 357 women of the Julius Center in Utrecht, and the Monitoring Project on Risk Factors for Chronic Diseases (MORGEN) cohort of 22 654 men and women of the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) in Bilthoven. In the design phase, both cohorts collaborated closely to obtain maximal synergy in the design of the questionnaires and to follow identical protocols in the collection of biological samples. Because of the efficiency gain in maintaining the cohort infrastructure and in conducting scientific analyses, the Julius Center and the RIVM decided to combine efforts to maintain and expand the cohorts and biobanks by merging them into one EPIC-Netherlands (EPIC-NL) study.
2. OUTCOME FOLLOW-UP
Type of data for outcome follow-up (please select as many as appropriate)
 

  • Active (contact with participants)
  • Death certificate
  • Disease incidence records
  • Hospital / physician diagnoses
  • Use of registers (specify)
Active (contact with participants) (specify)
 

  • By Questionnaires
Death certificate (specify)
 

  • Linkage to the causes of death registry of Statistics Netherlands
Disease incidence records (specify)
 

  • Linkage to the Netherlands Cancer Registry
Hospital / Physician diagnoses (specify)
 

  • Linkage to the hospital discharge diagnoses through the Dutch Centre for Health Care Information
Specify: Use of registers
 

  • For the occurrence of cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and other medical conditions by linkage to several registries
First follow-up period (provide year)
  1998-2002
Last follow-up period (provide year)
  2017
Number of follow-ups after baseline (provide number)
  4
3. OCCUPATIONAL EXPOSURES
Source of exposure data collected (please select as many as appropriate)
 

  • Questionnaire, Personal (Self-reporting or interview)
  • Registry-based
Occupational history/time frame
  Follow-up period
Occupational coding performed
  No
Methods for exposure assessment (please select as many as appropriate)
 

  • GIS (other spatial methods)
4. OUTCOMES EVALUATED
Baseline - type of outcome data collected (select more than one if applicable)
 

  • Death certificates
  • Medical records
  • Questionnaire, individual (self-recording or interview)
  • Registry-based
Registry-based
 

  • Cancer incidence
  • Hospital discharge
  • Mortality register
Follow-up - type of outcome data collected (select more than one if applicable)
 

  • Death certificates
  • Medical records
  • Questionnaire, individual (self-recording or interview)
  • Registry-based
Registry-based
 

  • Cancer incidence
  • Hospital discharge
  • Mortality register
Outcome type (please select as many as appropriate)
 

  • Mortality
  • Morbidity
Other health related outcomes
 

  • Lifestyle change
  • Sleep
  • Work participation
5. BIOLOGICAL SAMPLES & ANALYSIS
Biological samples collected
 

  • Blood
6. Other Information
 

  • Alcohol
  • Demographics
  • Diet
  • Education
  • Medical history
  • Physical exercise
  • Residential history
  • Smoking
Possibility for linkage to data registries/data enrichment via data linkage
 

  • Cancer incidence
  • Disease specific clinical database
  • Hospital discharge
  • Mortality register