Breaking News: The Malaysian Cohort Profile in the International Journal of Epidemiology
The baseline data from The Malaysian Cohort has been published in the most recent issue of the International Journal of Epidemiology (IJE). The IJE is ranked 3rd amongst 158 journals in the Public Health discipline. The article is published under the Cohort Profile section and it reports the demographic and prevalence data of non-communicable diseases amongst the 106,527 participants sampled from the multi-ethnic population of Malaysia. The Malaysian Cohort is a top-down project which was approved by the cabinet in 2005 and started the recruitment of participants in 2007. UMBI is the secretariat for the project.
The main objectives were to identify risk factors, to study gene-environment interaction and to discover biomarkers for the early detection of cancers and other diseases. At recruitment, a questionnaire-based interview was conducted, biophysical parameters measured and biospecimens obtained, processed and stored. Baseline tests include fasting blood sugar, lipid profile, renal profile and full blood count. The baseline prevalence data showed 16.6% with Type 2 diabetes, 46.5% with hypertension, 44.9% with hypercholesterolemia and 17.7% with obesity. The Cohort study is now entering the follow-up phase. This is the most comprehensive and biggest cohort study in Malaysia and has become a valuable resource for epidemiological and biological research. The Malaysian Cohort secretariat would like to thank everyone who has contributed to the project. The full paper can be downloaded from the internet (Jamal et al, 2014).