Born in Bradford

Born in Bradford (BiB) started in 2007 as a response to the poor health outcomes for children in Bradford. Pregnant women were recruited when they attended the Bradford Royal Infirmary for their routine maternity care. Participants were asked to complete a questionnaire about different aspects of their lives including demographics information, physical and mental health and socio-economic information.

Between 2007 and 2011, 12,453 pregnant women were recruited and 3,353 of their partners. Participants also gave permission for routine data linkage for themselves and their children. The BiB cohort is split between approximately 50% South Asian and 50% non-South Asian participants.

BiB has completed a number of sub-sample studies including BiB1000, which focussed on exploring ethnic variation and risk factors of childhood obesity. Data collection included questionnaires with parents when the children were between 6 and 36 months at 6 monthly intervals.

The ALLIN and MeDALL studies focussed on the relationships between childhood allergies and infections.Data collection for these studies were done via a questionnaire and, for the MeDALL study, children were asked to have a skin allergy test.

Since 2016, BiB have undertaken a full cohort follow-up compromising of home visits for data collection through questionnaires, school visits where children carried out cognitive assessments, and a child measurement programme where children were weighed and measured, had their activity levels measured, and were asked to give a blood sample.

From the findings of these studies, BiB have developed a range of additional research projects such as evaluating and developing new interventions to improve health; for example, focussing on reducing childhood obesity, increasing physical activity, improving oral health and improving mental wellbeing. BiB have gone beyond functioning as an observational birth cohort and are actively trying to build and strengthen local research capacity and translate evidence to practice.

Sample design

Almost all Bradford women attend antenatal care and give birth at the Bradford Royal Infirmary (BRI), which has approximately 5,800 births per year. Women were eligible for recruitment to BiB if they planned to give birth at BRI and ineligible if they planned to move away from Bradford before the birth. Pregnant women were recruited to the study between March 2007 and December 2010 when they attended their Oral Glucose Tolerance Test at 26-28 weeks gestation. All babies born to recruited women were eligible for recruitment even if the mother did not want to participate herself. Fathers and partners were asked to join the study wherever possible during the antenatal phase and immediately after birth, as long as the mother had already consented to the study.

Participants were allocated a unique study number. NHS numbers have been used to facilitate record linkage and access to routine data.

Linked data

The following data has been linked to the Born in Bradford study:

EYFS Profile
Year 1 Phonics Assessment
Key Stage 1 Assessment
Education Contextual Data
SystmOne GP Record
Hospital Admissions
A&E
Residential address/grid reference

Management and funding

Born in Bradford is funded by the following organisations and institutions:

Accessing the data

Born in Bradford allows researchers to apply to access the study data through the BiB Executive Group. Researchers need to submit an EOI form to borninbradford@bthft.nhs.uk and the EOI will be reviewed at the monthly BiB Exec.

Information about the different data sets can be found on the Born in Bradford website

More information about how to access BiB data can be found on the study website.

Cohort profile

John Wright, Neil Small, Pauline Raynor, Derek Tuffnell, Raj Bhopal, Noel Cameron, Lesley Fairley, Debbie A Lawlor, Roger Parslow, Emily S Petherick, Kate E Pickett, Dagmar Waiblinger, Jane West, on behalf of the Born in Bradford Scientific Collaborators Group, Cohort Profile: The Born in Bradford multi-ethnic family cohort study, International Journal of Epidemiology, Volume 42, Issue 4, August 2013, Pages 978–991,