Cohort profile: The Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa)

Abstract

The Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) was planned in the 1990s partly by researchers at the Medical Birth Registry of Norway (MBRN)1 and partly by researchers at the National Institute of Public Health (from 2002 comprising MBRN as well as other institutions and renamed the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH). The study had a long planning phase involving many scientists who contributed ideas that helped to design questionnaires and to structure the biobank, which is described in detail elsewhere.2 Collaboration was established with the Danish Birth Cohort Study,3 which was planned in parallel with MoBa. In 1997, a pilot study was undertaken, recruiting pregnant women at their first visit to their general practitioner. However, the main study did not implement this data collection method owing to protests made by a group of general practitioners who argued against the scientific value of the study and suggested that women would be unduly worried by its focus on risks of disease. As a consequence of the protests, the Parliament Social Committee ordered the Ministry of Health to abandon further planning until these issues had been reviewed. After the review by the Committee in 1998, Parliament voted in favour of the study. The government provided seed money. The NIPH decided to commence the study on a small scale and expand as funds became available. The total cost during the recruitment period (1999–2008) has been estimated at ∼45 million dollars. Roughly two-thirds of the funding comes directly from the Ministry of Health and the NIPH. The Research Council of Norway decided early on that it would not support basic data collection but has supported DNA extraction through a programme on functional genomics. The remaining funds have been derived from national and international (National Institutes of Health, USA and integrated projects within the Frameworks for Research in the European Union) funding based on research collaboration. However, the data collection has yet to be completely funded. Sub-projects requiring additional data collection must have separate funding.