Growing up in Bradford: Protocol for the age 7-11 follow up of the Born in Bradford birth cohort

YesBorn in Bradford (BiB) is a prospective multi-ethnic pregnancy and birth cohort study that was established to examine determinants of health and development during childhood and, subsequently, adult life in a deprived multi-ethnic population in the north of England. Between 2007 and 2010, the BiB cohort recruited 12,453 women who experienced 13,776 pregnancies and 13,858 births, along with 3353 of their partners. Forty five percent of the cohort are of Pakistani origin. Now that children are at primary school, the first full follow-up of the cohort is taking place. The aims of the follow-up are to investigate the determinants of children's pre-pubertal health and development, including through understanding parents' health and wellbeing, and to obtain data on exposures in childhood that might influence future health. Methods: We are employing a multi-method approach across three data collection arms (community-based family visits, school based physical assessment, and whole classroom cognitive, motor function and wellbeing measures) to follow-up over 9000 BiB children aged 7-11 years and their families between 2017 and 2021. We are collecting detailed parent and child questionnaires, cognitive and sensorimotor assessments, blood pressure, anthropometry and blood samples from parents and children. Dual x-ray absorptiometry body scans, accelerometry and urine samples are collected on subsamples. Informed consent is collected for continued routine data linkage to health, social care and education records. A range of engagement activities are being used to raise the profile of BiB and to disseminate findings. Discussion: Our multi-method approach to recruitment and assessment provides an efficient method of collecting rich data on all family members. Data collected will enhance BiB as a resource for the international research community to study the interplay between ethnicity, socioeconomic circumstances and biology in relation to cardiometabolic health, mental health, education, cognitive and sensorimotor development and wellbeing.BiB receives core infrastructure funding from the Wellcome Trust (WT101597MA) and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) under its Collaboration for Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC) for Yorkshire and Humber and Clinical Research Network (CRN) research delivery support. Further support for genome-wide and multiple ‘omics measurements is from the UK Medical Research Council (G0600705), National Institute of Health Research (NF-SI-0611-10196), US National Institute of Health (R01 DK10324), and the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) / ERC grant agreement no 669545. The follow-up of BiB participants, which is the focus of this paper, is funded by a joint grant from the UK Medical Research Council and UK Economic and Social Science Research Council (MR/N024397/1) and a grant from the British Heart Foundation (CS/16/4/32482.) D.A.L. works in a unit that receives UK Medical Research Council funding (MC_UU_00011/6) and is a UK National Institute of Health Research senior investigator (NF-SI-0611-10196)