Portsmouth Birth Cohort Registry
Research type
Research Database
IRAS ID
162850
Contact name
Suzannah Helps
Contact email
Research summary
Portsmouth Birth Cohort Registry
REC name
South Central - Berkshire B Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/SC/0008
Date of REC Opinion
23 Jan 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion
Data collection arrangements
Data will be collected at two points: (1) at 12/18 weeks of pregnancy, called Wave 0 and (2) at birth, called Wave 1. Wave 0: A questionnaire will be administered to pregnant women when they attend antenatal ultrasound clinic at QAH. The questionnaire will have several modules on basic socio-demographics; housing; parent’s education and employment; marital status; birth history; women’s dietary practices including alcohol consumption; smoking; antenatal care visits; health status; medication. Following screening and consent, data collection will be carried out by the research midwife and other researchers. Answers will be manually recorded on the interview questionnaire by the interviewer at the time of interview. Wave 1: There is no formal data collection in Wave 1. Information regarding type of delivery, health status of the child, including birth weight, will be gathered by the research midwife from women’s files at the maternity ward. All data will be manually entered in the database by a researcher recruited for this project. A comprehensive data management system will be developed. The database will be Microsoft Access for Windows. Data will be stored on a password encrypted University of Portsmouth computer in a locked office at the University of Portsmouth.
Research programme
The main objective of the Portsmouth Birth Cohort Registry is to chart the initial conditions of social, economic and health advantages and disadvantages facing children born in Portsmouth, capturing information that the research community of the future will require. The Portsmouth Birth Cohort will cover a wide variety of topics including mother and infant nutrition, family and parenting, physical and mental health, social and cultural engagement. The rationale for the study was that being able to understand the how the health and social conditions surrounding pregnancy, birth and early childhood would influence the whole of the life course. That will help policies and programmes at Portsmouth city to focus on specific areas of importance. We hope that researchers based at the University of Portsmouth will use the database to undertake research to examine issues that are relevant to their research, and to the policies and programmes for Portsmouth. Our aim is to have further Waves, particularly at age one, and subsequently at important social and biological milestones. Our ultimate aim is to help researchers to have access to birth cohort data to answer important questions that were unable to be answered using routine data or observational studies.
Research database title
Portsmouth Birth Cohort Registry
Establishment organisation
University of Portsmouth
Establishment organisation address
Purple Door,28 Guildhall Walk
Portsmouth
PO1 2DD