The Hertfordshire Cohort Study Team, 2008.

From left to right:
Back row - Hayley Denison, Shirley Simmonds, Keith Gardner, Harnish Patel, Karen Jameson, Vanessa Cox, Sian Robinson
Front row - Holly Syddall, Avan Aihie Sayer, Cyrus Cooper, Janet Cushnaghan, Elaine Dennison.

I graduated in medicine from the Universities of Cambridge and London, before completing my training in general medicine and rheumatology in Southampton. I initially joined the MRC Environmental Epidemiology Unit in 1985, when I commenced by doctoral research on the epidemiology of osteoporosis. Thereafter, I continued collaborative research with colleagues in the Unit while I travelled to Bristol and the United States, before returning as a Consultant Rheumatologist and MRC Senior Scientist in 1992.

My principal research interests are the causes and prevention of chronic age-related musculoskeletal disorders, including osteoporosis and osteoarthritis.

I took over direction of the Unit in 2003, following the retirement of Professor David Barker and am proud of the achievements of all our staff in continuing a strong and internationally prominent research tradition.

I graduated in medicine from the University of London and completed a PhD on ageing and its relationship to early growth at the University of Southampton. After all that studying, I returned to full time clinical work and became a consultant in geriatric medicine in 1998. However I couldn’t resist the opportunity to return to research when a post became available in 2000 and have been based at the Medical Research Council Epidemiology Resource Centre ever since.

Recently I have brought together a group of people interested in studying healthy ageing focusing on how it can be affected by influences operating across all stages of life. This type of research can only be carried out with precious birth cohorts like the Hertfordshire Cohort Study. I also continue to work as a geriatrician at Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust and was appointed Honorary Professor of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Southampton in 2007.

I trained at Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge before moving to Southampton in 1992 to undertake a medical rotation at Southampton. I did the research leading to my PhD in Hertfordshire [looking at relationships between how people grow early in life and their risk of osteoporosis (brittle bones) in adulthood], and enjoyed the work so much that when it was suggested I might help with the next phase of the Hertfordshire Study, I was delighted to participate.

I have been working on this phase of the study since 1998; over that time I have also been appointed as a consultant in rheumatology. My particular great interest remains osteoporosis and the factors that make some people particularly vulnerable, and Hertfordshire has helped us research this considerably. For example, there have been 15 scientific papers published on this aspect of the work in Hertfordshire alone. With many thanks to all those participants that have made this statement possible.

I joined the MRC in October 2000 as a Research Assistant to the Hertfordshire Cohort Study following a BSc degree in Biological Sciences and previous research experience working on studies investigating upper airways obstruction and sudden infant death syndrome in babies. My role as the Hertfordshire research assistant involved gaining valuable experience in all aspects of setting up and running a cohort study. Splitting my week between the study headquarters in Southampton, and the fieldwork clinics in Hertfordshire, meant I also got to conduct the measurements and meet some of the amazing men and women who took part. This meant I got to track data and be involved in the various stages from collection from the participants to its completion being published in a research paper.

With inspirational supervision by Professor Avan Aihie Sayer and fantastic epidemiological training from the MRC, I developed a keen interest in ageing research, and in particular the life course determinants of muscle strength and physical performance in older people. After completing a PhD in 2007, I am now continuing to research and understand the underlying mechanisms explaining variation in muscle strength and physical performance in older people, particularly developmental influences but also more contemporaneous factors such as physical activity. As part of this work, I also develop methods to measure muscle strength and endurance using portable devices for use in an epidemiological or clinical setting, and share this expertise with other cohort study organisers and researchers in training seminars. I no longer travel to Hertfordshire, but I am lucky enough to be able to present at various conferences around the globe and publish this work in international journals.

I qualified as a chartered physiotherapist at King's College hospital, London in 1980. I joined the MRC Unit in 2001 and now work part-time here as well as part-time for the Basingstoke and North Hampshire NHS Foundation Trust. This enables me to work on both of my professional interests, helping patients with rheumatic diseases (problems with joints and soft tissues) and carrying out important clinical research here at the MRC. My research interests are osteoarthritis epidemiology, patient education, the extended role of allied health professionals, telephone helplines and inflammatory arthritis. Outside of work my hobbies include tennis, hockey and travelling. Recently I have been working on the follow-up questionnaires that we sent out to you at the end of 2007, these have proved extremely interesting and I thank you for completing them for us.

I started working for the MRC in Southampton in October 1997 and have worked on the Hertfordshire Cohort Study ever since. I originally started work using the database of information about Hertfordshire men and women born between 1911 and 1930, but soon moved on to help establish the big study of men and women born 1931-39. Some of you might have met me when I popped up to Hertford for "IOV days" (inter and intra observer variation in case you are wondering what it means!). Many of you volunteered to help us with these training studies so that we could check whether the nurses and doctors were all measuring you as they had been trained to do!

Since the early days I have been involved with computerising all of the information that you have provided us with at your home interviews, clinic visits, scans and follow-ups. Once the data have all been computerised I then work with my clinical colleagues to identify the links in the data between potential causes and health outcomes and diseases. I have worked on potential causes of disease that range from lower birth weight and weight at one year, to obesity, physical activity, diet, lifestyle and self-assessed health. The health outcomes and diseases have ranged from cardiovascular disease to diabetes, falls, osteoporosis, hormones, grip strength and physical performance - it is really interesting work and I have become a clinical jack of all trades over the years!

I work very hard to present the results of our analyses clearly for presentation in research papers, posters and spoken presentations and have been lucky enough to attend some conferences to present results myself. You will no doubt have heard of the phrase "there are lies, damned lies and statistics" but I would like to assure you that when it comes to Hertfordshire, this particular statistician is here to make sure that there are only good quality data sets, thorough analyses and honestly presented results!

I joined the MRC unit in Southampton in 2006, to work on the Hertfordshire Cohort Study, as a statistician alongside Holly Syddall. Like Holly, I do a lot of work on preparing and checking the data that has been computerised, before analysing it to see if there are any links between our early life or our current lifestyles and our health. I’ve analysed the Hertfordshire data with respect to many things: for example arthritis, osteoporosis (thin bones), obesity, diet, frailty, quality of life, muscle strength, …., the list goes on!

I have just begun preparing and checking data from the questionnaires that so many of you have filled in for us recently. My clinical colleagues will, no doubt, already have many ideas about what they would like to do with this data; how they would like to analyse it and what links between different aspects they would like to consider.

There has been so much data collected from the Hertfordshire Cohort Study that there is more than enough to keep both myself and Holly busy! And what with the huge variety of the data we have, there is always something new we could look at.

This picture was taken in Welwyn Garden City in 1958, and the baby in the pram is me. Yes, I was a Hertfordshire baby too!

I grew up in WGC, and my first graduate job was with the survey section of the planning department at County Hall in Hertford. I spent a lot of my time there travelling round the county, more at my desk working on one of the many Stansted enquiries, and also got roped-in as enumerator for Tewin in the 1981 census. I was finally lured away in 1982 by an intriguing ad. in The Guardian, for a job which seemed to perfectly match my qualifications, experience and interests. The selection panel must have agreed with me, because 26 years later I’m still here!

By 1988 I was one of a team conducting a nationwide search for infant records, which we could use to test the intuitive but at that time unproven idea that the conditions we experience before birth affect us throughout life, and ultimately determine our cause of death. I’d chased records in Plymouth, Preston and points between, so when I was asked to check out some ledgers in the basement store at County Hall in Hertford – well it felt like going home! The records turned out to be the best in the country, and the rest you know.

Along the way, I’ve acquired a husband and three babies of my own (now teenagers), and I work part-time as a result. You won’t often see me in clinic, but behind the scenes I’ll be beavering happily at all your paperwork and computer files, or working on plans for the next phase of research!

I graduated with a BSc degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Bath in June 2007. My main interests whilst studying were always in health and disease, so when I saw the advertisement for a position at the ERC I couldn’t believe my luck! It was exactly what I had been looking for, an opportunity to work within an incredibly interesting and important area of research, aiming to discover ways in which to improve human health.

I have been working on the Hertfordshire study now since October 2007. I assist the research scientists in all aspects of the study, from reviewing literature in the areas we study, to helping participants on the phone when they have a question. I have also been involved in working with the recent questionnaires that many of you have filled out. These contain vast amounts of valuable information that should provide us with some very interesting findings, so thanks to all who sent these in.

I joined the MRC Epidemiology Unit in 1991 and have been heavily involved in the Hertfordshire cohort study ever since. I am the IT manager here so I am responsible for the management and analysis of all the Hertfordshire data. This includes information we have found in the birth records from Hertfordshire, as well as all the information you have given us through questionnaires and clinics. The data is protected with sophisticated security systems and you can feel assured that only our staff and collaborating scientists will view the information.

My name is Lyndsey Goulston and I am a rheumatology research physiotherapist based at the MRC in Southampton. I qualified as a physiotherapist at the University of Liverpool in 1999 and worked as a rotating junior physiotherapist at Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust in London until 2003. Since then I have worked in Gibraltar as a musculoskeletal physiotherapist for a year and then back to the UK as a community physiotherapist. During this time I have developed a special interest in rheumatology in particular osteoarthritis (OA) and I am now working towards a PhD in OA of the knee.

The Hertfordshire Cohort Study is my first experience of an epidemiological study. My main interest in this study is looking at body weight and biomechanical risk factors for knee OA and how they may work together to speed up the process of getting further OA.

My medical training was based at The Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine from where I qualified as a doctor in May 1978. Following a three year GP training scheme, I became a General Practitioner, working as a full-time partner in a practice in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire from 1982 until I joined the Hertfordshire MRC fieldwork team in 2000. During my time as a GP I was aware of the research project, in which I was later to participate, as several of my patients were ‘Hertfordshire Babies’. My role was to establish a second research clinic in North Hertfordshire with a team of three newly appointed nurses. Initially we carried out tests on volunteers in the 1931 to 39 birth group living in the North Herts area, running alongside the already well-established East Herts clinic based at Hertford County Hospital. We then went on to visit and perform clinic tests on the 1920 to 30 age group who had originally participated in the early 1990’s.

It never ceases to amaze me how so many people, often not in robust health, were willing to come to our clinic, run from the basement of the old cottage hospital in Royston, in return for a cup of tea and a slice of toast. Many returned several times to help in the training of the nurses as well as to participate in further tests. Without our willing, cheerful, interesting and informative volunteers none of this extremely valuable research could have been carried out.