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Cohort Profile: The Newcastle Thousand Families 1947 Birth Cohort

2008; Oxford University Press; Volume: 38; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/ije/dyn184

1464-3685

Mark S. Pearce, Nigel Unwin, Louise Parker, Alan Craft,

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How did the study come about?The initial thoughts leading to the development of the Thousand Families Study arose through observations made by Sir James Spence, one of the first full-time paediatricians in the United Kingdom and from 1942, the first holder of a University Chair of Child Health in England.Prior to the Second World War, the city council in Newcastle upon Tyne, the city in Northern England in which Spence was based, became increasingly concerned about the high-infant mortality rate in the city (in 1939 the rate was 62 per 1000 live births).At that time the city council had a responsibility for the health of its citizens.They asked Spence to undertake a review of all deaths of children under the age of 5 years.He concluded that the excess infant mortality was due to death from acute infection. 1Further research was curtailed by the Second World War.At the end of the war, the young doctors began to return to take up their former careers.One of those was Fred Miller and in 1946 Spence is reported to have said to him at a weekly departmental meeting 'Well Freddie, isn't it time we did something about these infections?'. 2 So began the Newcastle Thousand Families Study.The study was initially planned for only 1 year and aimed to confirm the earlier finding that acute infection was the major cause of infant mortality in the city, and in particular identify which factors put infants at a higher risk of such infections.However, it continued throughout childhood and has evolved into a longitudinal cohort study now in its seventh decade.