Continuing Access to Harvard Longitudinal Survey Data

Cross-sectional data sets, such as derived from the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES), are readily available at no cost over the web, and analyses of such data sets can help suggest potential associations between dietary intake exposures and health outcomes. However, because cross- sectional surveys collect exposure and outcome data at the very same point in time, they cannot help us understand if exposures through routine dietary intake and other exposures related to regulated products preceded diagnosis of adverse health conditions.

Longitudinal data – often collected repeatedly from participants in prospective cohort studies conducted over several years – help to reveal relationships between dietary and environmental exposures and the development of health conditions over time. The FDA Human Foods Program (HFP)/Office of Surveillance Strategy and Risk Prioritization (OSSRP)/Division of Evaluation and Population Health Science (DEPHS)/Epidemiology and Medical Sciences Branch (EMSB) is interested in obtaining such longitudinal data from the ongoing President and Fellows of Harvard College/Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) longitudinal studies:

• Nurses’ Health Study original cohort (NHS: ~122,000 participants, since 1976)
• Nurses’ Health Study II (NHSII: ~116,000 participants, began in 1989)
• Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (HPFS: ~100,000 men, since 1986)
• Growing Up Today Study (GUTS: children of NHS participants, including 16,882 girls and boys; since 1996)
• Growing Up Today Study 2 (GUTS2: children of NHSII participants, including 10,923 girls and boys; since 2004)

Analyses of longitudinal data from these studies will help monitor diet and lifestyle risk factors, allow for scientific evaluation of potential causal links between these factors and chronic disease incidence, and enhance understanding of individual and intergenerational relationships between dietary intake, lifestyle exposures, and chronic conditions/long-term health effects throughout the lifespan, among parents and offspring, including evaluating grandmother-maternal-child outcomes. This information will help the FDA improve dietary policy and consumer education to protect and promote public health.
Please see attched SOW.