France

The French E3N Cohort Study
https://www.e3n-generations.fr/e3n-generations-presentation

Centre for Research in Epidemiology and Population Health (CESP)
Exposome and Heredity team
INSERM U1018 – Paris Saclay University – Gustave Roussy
https://www.e3n-generations.fr/lequipe-exposome-et-heredite

 

Background

The E3N-Generations cohort is a French family population-based cohort that currently includes about 140 000 participants. It includes the initial E3N cohort of 98 995 women aged 40–65 years recruited in 1990 and actively followed up since then, their children (n = 21 000, recruitment still ongoing), the fathers of these children (n = 18 000 recruited since 2014), and their grandchildren (recruitment will start in 2027).
 
Participants in the initial E3N cohort were recruited from among women living in France and enrolled in the MGEN (Mutuelle Générale de l’Education Nationale), a national health insurance plan that covers employees of the French national education system and their families. About 75 000 of these women completed the food frequency questionnaire sent out in 1993, and they make up the EPIC-France cohort.


Follow-up

Each woman in the initial E3N cohort study has been actively followed up by self-administered questionnaires every 2–3 years since 1990; currently, 13 waves of data collection are available, until 2021. These questionnaires collect information on lifestyle and reproductive factors, body size, medical history, and family history of cancer. In addition, women have been passively followed up since 2004 through administrative databases provided by MGEN that include medication claims data and information on medical contacts. Death certificates are available for women who died during follow-up, and linkage to the French National Service on Causes of Death (CépiDC) provided causes of death. Moreover, blood samples were collected from about 25% of the women and saliva samples from almost 50%.

Detailed information on the entire E3N-Generations cohort is available at: https://www.e3n-generations.fr/e3n-generations-presentation

 

Scientists


Funding

Financial support is provided by:

  • Ligue Nationale Contre le Cancer
  • Institut Gustave Roussy
  • Mutuelle Générale de l’Education Nationale (MGEN)
  • Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM)
  • French National Research Agency (ANR, reference ANR-10-COHO-0006)
  • French Ministry for Higher Education (subsidy 2102918823, 2103236497, and 2103586016)

 

Research Activities

Investigation of the interplay of exposomic, genetic, and molecular factors in the etiology and prognosis of chronic diseases (in particular cancers, diabetes, cardiovascular and neurological disorders), examining them both individually and as co-occurring conditions (i.e. comorbidity or multimorbidity).