Nurses Health Study

Barry Pakes

The Nurses Health Study (NHS) and its successor, the NHS II, are two of the largest prospective (for-ward-looking) studies ever conducted. The primary purpose of the studies is to investigate the risk factors for major chronic diseases among women. The original NHS study began in 1976 and was motivated by an interest in assessing the safety profile of oral contraceptive, which millions of women had recently begun taking. Approximately 122,000 married registered nurses between the ages of 30–55 were enrolled in the study and were asked to fill out questionnaires every two years. Topics initially included smoking, hormone use, and other chronic disease parameters. Eventually, other components were added including diet and nutrition assessments, quality-of-life measures, and blood and toenail samples. In the NHS II study, launched in 1989, investigators were interested in looking for contraceptive–cancer links in a younger cohort of women who may have begun oral contraceptives in ...

Users without subscription are not able to see the full content on this title. Please, subscribe or login to access all content on this website.