The Collaborative Perinatal Project (abbreviated CPP), also known as the National Collaborative Perinatal Project (or NCPP), was a multisite
prospective cohort study
A prospective cohort study is a longitudinal
Longitudinal is a geometric term of location which may refer to:
* Longitude
** Line of longitude, also called a meridian
* Longitudinal engine, an internal combustion engine in which the crankshaft ...
designed to identify the effects of complications during either
pregnancy
Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring develops ( gestates) inside a woman's uterus (womb). A multiple pregnancy involves more than one offspring, such as with twins.
Pregnancy usually occurs by sexual intercourse, but ...
or the
perinatal period on birth and child outcomes, especially neurological disorders such as
cerebral palsy
Cerebral palsy (CP) is a group of movement disorders that appear in early childhood. Signs and symptoms vary among people and over time, but include poor coordination, spasticity, stiff muscles, Paresis, weak muscles, and tremors. There may be p ...
. It was conducted by the
on over 55,000 pregnant mothers at 12 sites across the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...
from 1959 to 1965.
It is one of the largest and broadest epidemiological studies in American history; according to Mark Klebanoff, "No U.S.-based study of pregnancy and childhood conducted before or since has matched its size, breadth and depth".
History
The CPP originated in 1954, when funding for the study was approved as a
line item in the budget of the
National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness (later renamed the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke). It was originally dubbed the "Collaborative Study of Cerebral Palsy, Mental Retardation and Other Neurological and Sensory Disorders of Infants and Children". It was later renamed the Cerebral Palsy Project, and then renamed again to the Collaborative Perinatal Project. More recently, the word "National" has often been added to the name of the study. It was controversial from its inception, with critics arguing that the data being collected was of poor quality, and that the funding for the study would be better spent a larger number of smaller, more focused projects. Nevertheless, later validation studies demonstrated that the study's data was actually high-quality.
Methods
The CPP enrolled its first woman on January 2, 1959. It was conducted at 12 academic centers, which had the advantage of facilitating expert involvement in the research and to complete follow-up, but had the drawback of decreasing representativeness. Each of the centers also had its own
sampling frame In statistics, a sampling frame is the source material or device from which a sample is drawn. It is a list of all those within a population who can be sampled, and may include individuals, households or institutions.
Importance of the sampling f ...
, but many audits were developed to ensure that participants who were recruited were representative of the sampling frame.
Researchers collected data on participants' "pre-pregnancy weight, height, and time to pregnancy; demographic and smoking related data; and reproductive, medical, and gynecological history."
was also performed on each woman at each study visit.
Published results
The first major report describing the study's findings was ''The Women and Their Pregnancies'', published in 1972. The study also followed up on 37,431 babies born from 1959 to 1966; the results of this follow-up were described in the 1979 book ''The First Year of Life''.
References
{{Reflist
External links
National Collaborative Perinatal Project, 1959-1974
Epidemiological study projects
Cohort studies
National Institutes of Health
Maternity in the United States