STUDY DESIGN ARTICLE Stockholm Birth Cohort Study 1953–2003: A new tool for life-course studies

Aims: To create a new tool for life-course studies of health outcomes as well as social outcomes. Methods: Two anonymous data sets, one a local birth cohort and the other a nationwide registry, covering information from early and middle life, respectively, were matched using a ‘‘key for probability matching’ ’ based on a large number of variables, common to both data sets. The first data set provides social and health information from birth, childhood, and adolescence on boys and girls, born in Stockholm in 1953. The second data set provides information on income, work, and education as well as any inpatient visits and any mortality from mid-life for the entire Swedish population. Results: For 96 % of the original cohort it was possible to add data from mid-life. Thus, a new database has been created, referred to as the Stockholm Birth Cohort Study, which provides rich and unique life-course data from birth to age 50 for 14,294 individuals: 7,305 men and 6,989 women. Comparison of matched and unmatched cases in the original cohort suggests that those individuals that could not be matched had slightly more favourable social and intellectual circumstances and had often moved away from Sweden in the 1980s. Conclusion: The new database provides excellent opportunities for life-course studies on health and social outcomes. It allows for studies that have not previously been possible in Sweden or elsewhere. Further, it provides an opportunity for collaborative work with similar databases in Copenhagen and Aberdeen