Childhood Cognitive Antecedents of Adult Psychopathology: Follow-up of the Port Pirie Lead Cohort into Adulthood

儿童期因素在成人精神障碍发展中的作用是一个重要的公共卫生问题。在出生前确定并在整个生命过程中跟踪的indvivioblasts提供了建立特定类型精神障碍预测因子的最有力手段。这些研究不仅使研究人员能够更清楚地确定疾病发作的确切年龄，而且还使我们了解可能导致该疾病发展的背景和可能的风险因素。及早识别疾病可大大减少公共卫生成本，并通过使个人在症状变得过于严重和无法控制之前获得帮助来减轻社区的负担。很少有长期的研究调查的综合作用，产前，发展，父母的特点，生物和儿童期的认知风险因素在成人精神功能障碍的发展。甚至更少的研究在一组暴露于环境毒素（如铅）的个体中检查这种相互关系。这项研究将对来自皮里港铅冶炼城市的723名成年人进行随访，他们最初是在1979年至1982年之间招募的。所有成年人在童年时都在一定程度上接触过铅，并在他们一生中的不同时间点进行了跟踪。该项目自他们首次参与以来将进行27年，因此将是在这一领域进行的时间最长的研究之一。已经收集到的关于这一群体的广泛信息将使我们能够非常全面地了解各种类型的成人障碍的风险和保护因素。

The role of childhood factors in the development of adult psychiatric disorder is an important public health concern. Indvividuals identified before birth and followed across the life course offer the most powerful means of establishing predictors for particular types of psychiatric disorder. Not only do these studies enable researchers to more clearly determine the exact age of onset of disorder but they also give us insight into the background and hence possible risk factors that may have lead to the development of that disorder. Early identification of disorder can significantly reduce public health cost and reduce the burden on the community by enabling individuals to get help before their symptoms become too severe and unmanageable. Few long-term studies have investigated the combined role of pre-natal, developmental, parental characteristics, biological and childhood cognitive risk factors in the development of adult psychiatric dysfunction. Even fewer studies have examinined this interrelationship in a group of individuals who have been exposed to an environmental toxin such as lead. This study will follow-up 723 adults from the lead smelting city of Port Pirie who were originally recruited between 1979 and 1982. All adults were exposed to lead to some degree in childhood and have been followed over various time points over the course their lives. This project will be conducted 27 years since they were first involved, and will hence be one of the longest studies to be conducted in this field. The extensive information already collected on this group of individuals will enable us to create a very comprehensive picture of risk and protective factors for various types of adult disorder.