Harvard Nurses' Health Study

i started participating in the original nurses' study in the 70's; and it has been very interesting. today i received an email recuriting for the next phase of this long term study. so if any of you younger nurses are curious, check it out. in the past, some of the things they have looked were nutrition, shift work, stress, etc. effecting nurses' health.
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dear colleague:

we want to thank you for your continuing participation in the nurses' health study.

as you may have heard, we are starting a new phase of the nurses' health study and have begun enrolling a new cohort of young nurses: the nurses' health study iii.

we hope you will act as our ambassador to encourage your colleagues to join this new study. for the new cohort, we are enrolling 100,000 or more female rns and lpns between 22 and 45 years old (born after january 1, 1965). the new study will be entirely web-based, as roughly half of nurses' health study ii is already. to learn more and to join, nurses should visit [color=#670101]www.nhs3.org


your encouragement will go a long way to help explain how a small commitment to a study like this is of extraordinary value for research into the causes of disease and the factors that promote healthy lives.
Thanks for passing this along! I just did the first survey for NHS III.

Female only study? Fairly short sighted.

Not really, it started as a women's health study in the 70's, and they chose nurses as study subjects because if our clinical and observational skills, as well as the likelyhood that nurses would be compliant for the long haul.

Quote from kesrNot really, it started as a women's health study in the 70's, and they chose nurses as study subjects because if our clinical and observational skills, as well as the likelyhood that nurses would be compliant for the long haul.

I have participated in the second cohort of the study for some twenty years or so now, and I agree it has been v. interesting. Although it has mostly been filling out the detailed questionnaires every other year, at one point in the late '90s I was selected (randomly) to participate in a "sub-study" that involved contributing urine and blood specimens (for a study looking at links between hormone levels and breast cancer risk, if I recall correctly). I like the idea that my blood and urine is permanently "on file" at Hahhhhvard. My father, a physician, participated in a physician study done by the Harvard school of Public Health the entire time I was growing up -- it was one of the studies that first linked regular ASA with (decreased) heart attack risk. His study actually involved taking medication daily, although, of course, he never knew whether he was taking the "real thing" or placebos.I, too, encourage younger nurses (female) to enroll in the study!