Birth cohort studies have emerged in China over the past decade. Especially with the support of the Ministry of Science and Technology’s “Precision Medicine Research” program, the birth cohort studies flourish in various regions, which provide important opportunities for researches in terms of maternal, child, and reproductive health as well as research related to the early origins of disease. However, the sample sizes of birth cohort studies varies widely, and there are various limitations in the depth of coverage of each study. More critically, the genetic backgrounds and lifestyles of populations in China still vary to a great extent, and in such a case, a single cohort is only representative of the local population, which performs poor extrapolation. At the same time, in the context of evidence-based medicine and precision prevention and control, policies and clinical guidelines in the field of maternal, child and reproductive health in China need to be supported by evidence from birth cohorts with good national representativeness. In consideration of this, it is necessary to organize a national birth cohort research consortium to integrate the resources of birth cohort research in different parts of China and to take advantage of the large sample of prospective researches of birth cohort.

During the “13th Five-Year Plan” period, under the joint initiative of the Expert Group of the Major Research Program on Development and Reproduction of the Ministry of Science and Technology and with the great attention and support of the Ministry of Science and Technology, the former National Health and Family Planning Commission and other ministries, Nanjing Medical University, relying on its cross-cutting advantages in the fields of public health and reproductive medicine, has officially launched the construction of the national birth cohort, jointly with 32 reproductive centers in more than 20 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions of China. After six years of construction, a total of 80,000 families have been included in the cohort, making it one of the largest prospective birth cohorts in the world. Up to now, hundreds of millions of multidimensional health data including environment, lifestyle, clinical diagnostic and testing indicators have been collected from couples before conception, pregnancy and delivery to children’s childhood, and millions of biological samples of various categories have been collected to build a biological sample resource base. The face-to-face visit rate of the cohort of the children at 1 and 3 year old is more than 80%, and the accurate follow-ups have been carried out on a variety of child development and disease-related outcomes. At the same time, family-based multi-omics studies are conducted with the aim of revealing molecular patterns that determine offspring health and identifying molecular targets associated with adverse birth outcomes and childhood diseases.

Taking the opportunity of the three key R&D programs led by Nanjing Medical University during the 13th to 14th Five-Year Plan period, the Nanjing Medical University Birth Cohort Research Team intends to contact and invite several high-quality research units and teams to participate in the key R&D programs, as well as other influential birth cohorts in China, to form the China Birth Cohort Consortium (CBCC) so as to conduct large-scale prospective studies.