Abstract

The Heinz Nixdorf Recall Study (HNR) analysed a representatively chosen population sample of three cities in the German Ruhr district from 2001 to 2003. Since then 4.814 participants are continuously observed concerning their illnesses and the development of risk factors for creating a longitudinal dataset. So far questions of occupational health are not a main aim of the HNR study. This is the aim of the “AeKo” project. Therefore stored bio compatible material will be analysed again, information of employment will be used and additional medical studies will be done with some participants. This new cohort study is not just promising for research on occupational health. A further task is to prepare for the “National Cohort”. The additional medical studies will be used for observation and development of an occupational health survey report and biomonitoring for future applications in the scheduled national wide population study. This new methods will not only be tested concerning their feasibility, but also validated with the scientific results from the first step. This includes an exemplary setup of a “Biobank” for defining biological threshold values in an unselected population.
The IAB is involved in an exploratory project to determine employment biographies from available social security data. The data collection is used for testing procedures with regard to the “National Cohort”. In order to do this, the IAB - besides planning tasks for developing a Standard Operating Procedure - also takes over the organisation of the data collection of social data in Essen, the continuous supervision of the data collection and the overall quality assurance. The most comprehensive task will be the determination of the employment biographies from the IAB database. Dependent on the willingness to participate there about 2500-3000 datasets will be generated. The IAB will supervise the data validation of the employment biography data and work out recommendations for the “National Cohort”.