Research project Stockholm Birth Cohort
The Stockholm Birth Cohort study (SBC) is a collaboration project between Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI) and Centre for Health Equity Studies (CHESS).
The Stockholm Birth Cohort study (SBC) is a collaboration project between Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI) and Centre for Health Equity Studies (CHESS). The material is kept at Department of Public Health Sciences, Stockholm University.
The study consists of two parts: Project Metropolitan that covers the period between 1953 and 1983 and a probability matched follow-up of the cohort that covers the period between 1980 and 2009. The SBC is an anonymous data base, the purpose of which is research in psychology, public health sciences, and sociology.
Project description
The Stockholm Birth Cohort Study (SBC) was created in 2004/2005 by a probability matching of two comprehensive and longitudinal datasets. The first, the Stockholm Metropolitan study 1953–1985, consists of all children born in 1953 and living in the Stockholm metropolitan area in 1963. The second, The Swedish Work and Mortality Database 1980–2009 (WMD), consists of all individuals living in Sweden in 1980 or 1990, and born before 1985.
The initiative to create the database was taken by Denny Vågerö at the Centre for Health Equity Studies, CHESS, of Stockholm University/Karolinska Institute and Sten-Åke Stenberg at the Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University (SOFI). The resulting database provides a 50 year long follow-up of the original 1953 birth cohort.
Documentation
Since the start of the Metropolitan project many studies on various topics have been conducted using the collected data. From the beginning of the 1970s to 1995, a total of 44 research reports were published on the Metropolitan project, in addition to a vast number of peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, theses and dissertations.
Research topics covered have included criminality, education, mental health, welfare dependence, sibling position, suicide, peer status, child rearing, drug abuse, and much more.
Ethical consideration
We carefully considered the ethical problems that can arise when handling databases:
Database set-up
Please see the following papers for a more detailed description of the set-up of the Stockholm Birth Cohort Study:
Stenberg, S. Å., Vågerö, D., Österman, R., Arvidsson, E., von Otter, C. and Janson, C. G. (2007) "Stockholm Birth Cohort Study 1953-2003: a new tool for life-course studies." Scand J Public Health, 35(1):104-10.
Link to Abstract
Stenberg, S. Å. and Vågerö, D. (2006) "Cohort profile: the Stockholm birth cohort of 1953." Int J Epidemiol, 35(3):546-8.
Link to Abstract
Final project report for The Swedish Research Council's (VR) research grant for large databases [in Swedish]
Report: A new tool for life course studies (In Swedish) (412 Kb)
Project members
Project managers
Ylva Brännström Almquist
Professor
Members
Jenny Eklund
Administrativ Chef
Sten-Åke Stenberg
Professor emeritus
Denny Vågerö
Emeritus
Publications
Publication list 1965-2018
More about this project
Two documentaries about project Metropolitan have been featured in Swedish radio.
The Swedish radio programme P3 Dokumentär has made a documentary about project Metropolitan. The documentary focuses on the media debate in the 80s - a debate that questioned the ethics of social research carried out on citizens in general and within project Metropolitan in particular.
Here you can listen to the programme - "Projekt Metropolit" [in Swedish]:
http://sverigesradio.se/sida/avsnitt/627369?programid=2519
The other Swedish radio programme P1 Tendens has made a documentary about how one of the cohort member’s life changed when he got information about his past through the register.
Here you can listen to the programme - "Forskningsprojektet Metropolit avslöjade Lars familjehemlighet" [in Swedish]: