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The importance of biological samples in longitudinal birth cohort studies
Author(s) -
Jones Richard
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
paediatric and perinatal epidemiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.667
H-Index - 88
eISSN - 1365-3016
pISSN - 0269-5022
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-3016.2008.00999.x
Subject(s) - medicine , environmental health , pollutant , cohort study , cohort , infectious disease (medical specialty) , disease , demography , ecology , biology , sociology
Here we describe how measurements in biological samples can be used to provide direct measures of exposures to environmental pollutants, nutrients, infectious organisms and drugs of abuse, and to validate other less direct measures of exposure such as questionnaire responses. They can also be used as measures of outcome traits or intermediate phenotypes which may lie on the pathways to disease.