The Raine Study has started booking appointments for the 18th follow-up in their multi-generational research.
The world-first West Australian study has tracked almost 3,000 young adults for more than 30 years – since they were 18 weeks in-utero – as the team seeks to understand the intergenerational causes and predictors of health and disease.
The Raine Study has completed the Gen2 (young adults) 28-year follow-up and the involvement of the new generation of more than 600 children (Gen3), born to Gen2 participants, will enable scientists to collect consistent data, in a similar timeframe, from the same two generations of participants.
The researchers are urgently seeking to reconnect with past and present participants of all ages and Associate Professor Rebecca Glauert, The Raine Study’s Scientific Director, has called on anyone who was once involved in the study to get back in contact, via the website, email, social media, or telephone.
“It’s never too late to re-engage with the Raine Study,” Professor Glauert said.
“It doesn’t matter how long it’s been since participants last saw us, or where they might be, they will always be part of the Raine Study and their involvement will make the study incrementally, exponentially better.”
For 33 years, 2,900 Perth women and the 2,868 children they gave birth to between 1989 and 1992 have taken part in 17 different research studies tracking their physical and mental health.
More than 30,000 pieces of data and more than 30 million pieces of genetic information have been collected on each participant, starting with a study of the impact of ultrasound during pregnancy before collecting biological, lifestyle, and environmental data from the babies and their parents at multiple checkpoints through infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.
Over 170,000 bio samples (blood, saliva, faeces, cord blood, baby teeth) have been collected, as well as extensive data on health, mental health, behaviour, environment, and social, educational, and work outcomes, and the study has been able to link this anonymised information with WA government sources, including school and hospital records.
This latest Generations Follow-up aims to complete assessments with as many of the original parents and their now 33-year-old offspring as possible over the next three years.
With the collection of a consistent data set from the two generations in the same period, the team hope to identify familial risk factors that contribute to the development of diseases such as diabetes, distinguish between the effects of genetic and environmental factors on health outcomes, identify the long-term health outcomes of exposures to environmental toxins, and explore the determinants of health disparities.
Telethon Kids Institute will be involved in implementing the follow-up assessments and Professor Blauert noted that the institute and other research partners (including UWA, Curtin, ECU, Murdoch, and The University of Notre Dame) were still analysing samples collected over the past three decades.
There are currently more than 150 researchers utilising the Raine Study’s key datasets within four overarching pillars of health research: physical health, mental health, lifestyle, and genetics.
“They bring expertise from 14 broad areas of research covering asthma and atopy, cardiovascular and metabolic heath, developmental growth, dental health, diabetes, genetic epidemiology, gastro-enterology, infection and immunity, mental health, musculoskeletal development, nutrition, physical activity, ophthalmology, pregnancy and birth, reproductive health, sleep, and risk-taking behaviour,” Prof Glauert said.
“Thanks to the Raine Study, researchers have established the direct link between a pregnant woman’s health choices and her child’s health outcomes, which have translated into global health policy – from setting foetal growth standards to confirming that children conceived via IVF have the same long-term health outlook as their naturally conceived counterparts.”
Raine Study participants who want to get back in touch can do so by:
Updating their contact information online at: https://rainestudy.org.au/
Email: rainestudy@uwa.edu.au
Phone: +61 8 6488 6952,
Sending a message via Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheRaineStudy
or
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rainestudy/