Umeå SIMSAM Lab: A register-based research program connecting childhood with lifelong health and welfare

The Umea ̊ SIMSAM Lab in a nutshell: 1) The Lab was established for interdisciplinary research from childhood into lifelong health and welfare. It provides individual-level data on an entire nation’s population, covering demography, socioeconomics and health, otherwise rarely accessible to the re- search community. 2) Initiated in 2008 and launched in 2014, the Lab hosts comprehensive prospectively collected individual-level data on all 14.9 million individuals in Sweden between 1960 and 2010, including intergenerational links and geographical coordinates. The foundation is data from national registers at Statistics Sweden, rich in demography and socioeconomics. Health data come from national registers such as the Medical Birth Register, the Patient Register, the Prescribed Drug Register and the Celiac Disease Register. Regionally data have been enriched by systematic and long-term initiatives involving data collection on weight/height, lifestyle habits, self-rated health, injuries etc. Each person has a unique serial number that allows linkage on individual level from all data sources. 3) The combination of longitudinal and individual-level demographic, socioeconomic and health data provides unprecedented research opportunities. In addition, social relations within family, workplace and neighbourhood can be depicted as intergenerational links, and geographical coordinates are available. 4) Researchers are welcomed to make contact for collaborative projects. Contact information and details on data access are also available on: [www.simsam.org.umu.se]. Purpose: We aim: (1) to increase knowledge of social and environmental factors that are of importance to health and welfare during childhood and life as it continues, e.g. regarding family changes, exchanges between generations and geographical mobility. (2) to increase knowledge of several childhood diseases (and injuries) considering the contribution of the social and economic context (3) i) monitor the health and lifestyle of children from foetal life to adolescence, and identify any changes over time; ii) perform aetiological studies to increase the understanding of child-health determinants from a family and neighbourhood perspective; and iii) evaluate the Salut programme with respect to any changes in lifestyle, health and educational outcomes in the short and long term. (4) to develop modern statistical methods for microdata research, primarily in order to perform aetiological studies with a life course perspective, and to assess complex interventions.