Data Organization And Management For Longitudinal DERVAN Cohort Study In KONKAN Region Of India (DERVAN-3)

Background: A skilful data management is the heart of any cohort study as results of such studies have far reaching impact on development national policies which will improve public health. Methods: DERVAN cohort is a longitudinal study set up in KONKAN region of India. The study is expected to last at least 20 years. It plans to investigate impact of adolescent growth, diet and cognition on the risk of development of non-communicable diseases in the adulthood with diabetes as the main focus. The study will also investigate parents and investigate their contribution to the risk. We plan to recruit 1520 adolescent girls. MS Access was used to design data management system. Each family was given a unique identity number. At base line we have created 21 tables, 10 queries for adolescent data and 5 tables, 2 queries for parental data. The data is analysed using statistical software SPSS. Conclusion: Though our system may not be designed using high end data base systems, it still caters to our needs in the initial stage of the project but its skilful design is expected to make a smooth adaptation to new database environment in the subsequent stages.