Vrijheid et al. contaminant exposures on pregnancy outcomes and child health (Wigle et al. 2007). Many have suffered from biases due to retrospective study designs, surrogate exposure and outcome measures, and incomplete confounder data. Pregnancy and birth cohort studies are ide- ally suited to improve causal inference in this field, because they are designed to study the impacts of early exposures prospectively and at multiple time points during development of the child. Furthermore, birth cohort studies usually collect biological material from moth- ers and children, enabling the measurement of biomarkers of exposure, early effect, or suscep- tibility. In the last two decades, new pregnancy Table 1. General description of European birth cohorts with environmental contaminant data. Full name and key reference Regions covered Enrollment of children Birth cohort ABCD ALSPAC ArcRisk-Norway BAMSE BiB Co.N.ER Czech DARC DNBC Duisburg EDEN ELFE Faroesa FLEHS I GASPII Generation R Generation XXI GINIplus HUMIS INMA oldb INMA newc INUENDOd KANC KOALA Kraków Leicestere LISAplus LUKAS MAS MoBa NINFEA PARIS PCB cohort PÉLAGIE PIAMA REPRO_PL Cohort 30 Prevention and Incidence of Asthma and Mite Allergy (Brunekreef et al. Netherlands Northern, western and central parts Country Netherlands United Kingdom Norway Sweden United Kingdom Italy Czech Republic Denmark Denmark Germany France France Faroe Islands Belgium Italy Netherlands Portugal Germany Norway Spain Spain Lithuania Netherlands Poland United Kingdom Germany Finland Germany Norway Italy France Slovakia France Poland Greece Troms, Finnmark, and Nordland Teplice and Prachatice Amsterdam Bristol Stockholm Bradford Bologna Odense Denmark Duisburg Nancy, Poitiers France Faroe Islands Flanders Rome Rotterdam Porto Munich, Wesel Norway Granada, Menorca, Ribera d’Ebre Asturias, Gipuzkoa, Sabadell, Valencia Kaunas Southern Netherlands Kraków Leicestershire and Rutland Munich, Wesel, Leipzig, Bad Honneff Kuopio, Jyväskylä, Joensuu, and Iisalmi Berlin, Duesseldorf, Freiburg, Mainz, Munich Norway Italy Paris Brittany Michalovce, Stropkov, Svidnik Lodz, Wroclaw, Lask, Kielce, Katowice, Legnica, Lublin, Szczecin, Piekary Slaskie Heraklion, Crete Eligible cohorts that completed the ENRIECO inventory questionnaires: 1992, 1997) 2007) Amsterdam Born Children and their Development study (van Eijsden et al. 2010) The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (Golding et al. 2001) Impacts on health in the Arctic and Europe owing to climate-induced changes in contaminant cycling The Stockholm Children Allergy and Environmental Prospective Birth Cohort Study (Wickman et al. 2002) Born in Bradford (Raynor 2008) Cohort of newborns in Emilia Romagna (Porta et al. 2006) Czech Republic Early Childhood Health (Dejmek et al. 2000) The Danish Allergy Research Centre cohort (Johnke et al. 2005) Danish National Birth Cohort (Olsen et al. 2001) Duisburg cohort (Wilhelm et al. 2008) Study of determinants of pre and postnatal developmental, psychomotor development and child health (Drouillet et al. 2009) French longitudinal study of children (Vandentorren et al. 2009) Children’s Health and the Environment in the Faroes (Grandjean et al. Flemish Environment and Health Survey (Koppen et al. 2009) Gene and Environment: Prospective Study on Infancy in Italy (Porta et al. Generation R (Jaddoe et al. 2008) Generation XXI (Pinto et al. 2009) German Infant Nutritional Intervention Study – plus influence of pollution and genetics on allergy development (Zirngibl et al. 2002) Norwegian Human Milk Study (Eggesbo et al. 2009) Environment and Childhood (Guxens et al. 2011) Environment and Childhood (Guxens et al. 2011) Biopersistent organochlorines in diet and human fertility (Toft et al. 2005) Kaunas cohort (Grazuleviciene et al. 2009) Child, parents and health: lifestyle and genetic constitution (Kummeling et al. 2005) Kraków cohort (Jedrychowski et al. 2003) The Leicester Respiratory Cohorts (Kuehni et al. 2007) Influences of life-style related factors on the immune system and the development of allergies in childhood – plus the influence of traffic emissions and genetic (Heinrich et al. 2002) LUKAS (Karvonen et al. 2009) Multicentre Allergy Study (Bergmann et al. 1994) The Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (Magnus et al. 2006) Birth and Infancy: Effects of the Environment (Richiardi et al. 2007) Pollution and Asthma Risk: An Infant Study (Clarisse et al. 2007) Early Childhood Development and PCB exposures in Slovakia (Sonneborn et al. 2008) Endocrine disruptors: longitudinal study on pregnancy abnormalities, infertility, and childhood (Chevrier et al. 2011) 2002) Polish Mother and Child Cohort (Polanska et al. 2009) RHEA Mother Child Cohort in Crete (Vardavas et al. 2010) Potentially eligible cohorts that did not complete the ENRIECO inventory questionnaire: Ukraine Children of Ukraine (Hryhorczuk et al. 2009) MAAS The National Asthma Campaign Manchester Asthma and Allergy Study (Custovic et al. 2002) Northern Adriatic Northern Adriatic Cohort (Barbone et al. 2004) Ukraine United Kingdom Italy Kyiv, Dniprodzerzhynsk, Mariupol Manchester Northeastern Italy aThe Faroes cohorts consist of four subcohorts: cohort 1 (enrollment: 1986–1987; n = 1022), cohort 2 (enrollment: 1994–1995; n = 182), cohort 3 (enrollment: 1997–2000, n = 656), cohort 5 (enrollment: 2007–2009; n = 491); bINMA old consists of three subcohorts: Granada (enrollment: 2000–2002; n = 668), Menorca (enrollment: 1997–1998; n = 482), Ribera Ebre (enrollment: 1997–1999; n = 102); cINMA new consists of four subcohorts: Asturias (enrollment: 2004–2007; n = 485), Gipuzkoa (enrollment: 2006–2008; n = 611), Sabadell (enrollment: 2004–2007; n = 622), Valencia (enrollment: 2003–2005; n = 787); dINUENDO consists of four subcohorts: Greenland, Sweden (east and west coast), Warsaw (Poland), Kharkiv (Ukraine); eThe Leicester Respiratory Cohorts consist of two subcohorts: the Leicester I cohort (enrollment: 1985–1989; n = 1,650) and the Leicester II cohorts (enrollment: 1993–1997; n = 8,700). period 2003–2004 1991–1992 2007–2009 1994–1996 2007–2010 2004–2005 1994–1999 1998–1999 1996–2002 2000–2003 2003–2006 2011–2012 1986–2009 2002–2004 2003–2004 2001–2006 2005–2006 1995–1998 2002–2011 1997–2002 2003–2008 2007–2009 2000–2003 2000–2003 1985–1997 1997–1998 2002–2005 1990 1999–2008 2005– 2003–2006 2001–2003 2002–2006 1996–1997 2007–2011 2007–2008 1992–1996 1995–1997 1999–2001 No. at birth 7,863 14,062 430 4,089 13,000 654 7,577 562 96,986 234 1,899 20,000 2,351 1,196 708 9,778 8,647 5,991 2,500 1,252 2,505 1,322 4,000 2,834 505 10,350 3,097 107,000 442 1,314 7,500 3,840 1,134 3,421 3,963 1,800 1,500 4,510 1,211 243 Greenland, Sweden, Greenland, Sweden (east and west coast), 2002–2004 Poland, Ukraine Warsaw (Poland), Kharkiv (Ukraine) ovlume 120 | number 1 | January 2012 • Environmental Health Perspectives