Identification and prevention of dietary and lifestyle-induced health effects in children and infants (IDEFICS)
The IDEFICS cohort is a pan-European population-based cohort of children representing diverse European lifestyles and considering multiple exposures and outcomes. The baseline examination, which took place between September 2007 and June 2008, included over 16,000 children aged 2 to 9.9 years from eight European countries: Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Spain, and Sweden. An extension and a further follow-up (third examination wave) of the IDEFICS children’s cohort was performed (I.Family) to create a longitudinal database of children and their families. I.Family investigates associations between children’s and parents’ dietary patterns and whether the family food environment mediates these associations.
Study design
Cohort
Number of participants at first data collection
16,228 (participants)
Recruitment is ongoing
Age at first data collection
2 - 9 years (participants)
Participant year of birth
Varied (participants)
Participant sex
All
Representative sample at baseline?
The diversity of lifestyles and environments across Europe
Sample features
Countries
Year of first data collection
2007
Primary Institutions
University of Bremen (Universität Bremen)
Profile paper DOI
Funders
European Union (EU)
Ongoing?
Yes
Data types collected
- Activity log (e.g. food, sleep, exercise)
- Computer, paper or task testing (e.g. cognitive testing, theory of mind doll task, attention computer tasks)
- Interview – face-to-face
- Physical or biological assessment (e.g. blood, saliva, gait, grip strength, anthropometry)
- Secondary data
- Self-report questionnaire – online
- Self-report questionnaire – paper or computer assisted
- Wearable devices
- Ethnography or participant observation
- Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
- Geographic, spatial & environmental data
- Healthcare data
Engagement
Keywords
Consortia and dataset groups
