Generation R

Infrastructure and User Services

Generation R is a multidisciplinary large-scale  population research infrastructure with extensive data for research focused on improving health and wellbeing for parents and their children. Data are collected in both observational prospective cohort and intervention studies in more than 40,000 participants in population-based settings in the city of Rotterdam. This infrastructure focuses on several outcomes including behavior and cognition, brain development, body composition, eye development, growth, hearing, heart and vascular development, infectious disease and immunity, oral health, respiratory health, allergy and skin disorders, and social participation of children and their parents. Main exposures of interest include environmental, endocrine, omics (genetics, epigenetics, microbiome), lifestyle-related, nutritional and socio-demographic factors. The Generation R facility has a fully equipped research center in the Erasmus MC – Sophia Children’s Hospital, including a dedicated 3 Tesla MRI, to perform deep-phenotyping studies, such as advanced biological, functional, imaging and clinical data during the preconception period, embryonic and fetal periods, childhood, and  adulthood. Data can be accessed remotely through a Digital Research Environment. In total, more than 150 researchers from over 50 national and international research institutes use the collected data. Results from Generation R have led to impact on various  novel prevention strategies for parents and the children.

Examples/description of the type of research

Generation R is a multidisciplinary large-scale  population research infrastructure focused on improving health and wellbeing for parents and their children. Data are collected in both observational prospective cohort and intervention studies in more than 40,000 participants in population-based settings in the city of Rotterdam. These data can and are being used for studies on the growth, development, health and wellbeing from the earliest phases of life onwards until adulthood. Focus is on identification of risk factors in the earliest stages of life, which influence outcomes across the full life course. Specific interest is also on the socio-demographic and ethnic differences in life course health and well-being outcomes across the life course. 

The extensive data collection includes detailed information about determinants, such as environmental, endocrine, omic (genetics, epigenetics, microbiome, metabolomics, proteomics), lifestyle-related, nutritional and socio-demographic factors, and on environmental, endocrine, genomic (genetic, epigenetic, microbiome), lifestyle related, nutritional and socio-demographic factors. Also, deep-phenotyping assessments have been performed on different outcomes important for parental and childhood health including behavior and cognition, brain development, body composition, eye development, growth, hearing, heart and vascular development, infectious disease and immunity, oral health, respiratory health, allergy and skin disorders, and social participation of children and their parents. The data have been harmonized with several European cohort studies, which collaborate in the EU Child Cohort Network. This network brings together nineteen pregnancy  and birth cohorts and can be accessed by external researchers through a shared federated data analysis platform.

How to access the infrastructure? 

All proposals for data use are being discussed in the Generation R Management Team. Discussions are focused on data-availability, scientific quality of the research group and proposal, overlap with other projects, and on ethical, financial and logistic consequences and the European GDPR. In principle, all request will be approved, but need to be checked  on these items. Data can be accessed through a Digital Research Environment (DRE), which enables R-based analyses in a GDPR proof setting.