Cohort Profile: The Boyd Orr cohort—an historical cohort study based on the 65 year follow-up of the Carnegie Survey of Diet and Health (1937–39)

The Boyd Orr cohort is an historical cohort study based on the long term follow-up of 4999 children who were surveyed in the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust's study of Family Diet and Health in Pre-War Britain (1937–39).1 With funding from the British Heart Foundation, the cohort was established in 1988 by Professors George Davey Smith and Stephen Frankel who retrieved the original research records of the pre-war survey from the Rowett Research Institute, Aberdeen, Scotland. The Carnegie Survey was the brainchild of Sir (later Lord) John Boyd Orr, director of the Rowett Research Institute from 1914 to 1945. The original research was funded by a grant of £15 000 from the trustees of the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust. Key members of the original survey team were David Lubbock (research administrator), Isabella Leitch (study design), John Pemberton and Angus Thomson (medical examinations), and Isabel Dods (supervision of the diet survey team).1 The historical background to the study has previously been described in detail.2 Its aim was to investigate ‘the connection between economic factors and physical welfare’.2