Project lead: Prof. Dr. Enno Swart

Project member(s): Dr. Christoph Stallmann, Ludwig Goldhahn

Funding: Federal Ministry of Education and Research, 01.05.2018 - 30.04.2023

The research project "German National Cohort" (GNC) aims to identify risk factors and etiological mechanisms for multifactorial chronic diseases and their early stages. To this, in a prospective cohort study around 200,000 participants are examined between the ages of 20 and 69 throughout Germany and initially tracked over a period of 10 years. The Institute of Social Medicine and Health System Research works as a coordinating node with the German Cancer Research Centre and the Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology BIPS in the "Competence Network Secondary and Registry Data" within the GNC. The main objective of the competence network is to enrich the GNC research data with retro- and prospective health and social data in the context of the passive follow-up of the participants. This additional, very detailed health-related information helps to better understand the causes and progression of chronic diseases. Relevant data owners are statutory and private health insurance companies, epidemiological and clinical cancer registries, the Central Institute for Statutory Health Insurance Physicians in Germany, the German Pension Insurance and the Institute for Employment Research of the Federal Employment Agency. Due to the high sensitivity of the data to be collected, their transmission and use is associated with high data protection requirements, which the competence network implements and continuously monitors. In the 2nd funding phase, further cooperations with data owners will be established and existing ones maintained. The main task will be the preparation and validation of secondary and register data for their integration into the GNC research database. The overall project leadership lies with the NAKO e.V.