Livsløpsstudie

Livsløpsstudie, or life-course study, is a longitudinal research design that follows individuals or birth cohorts over extended periods to observe how early life experiences and exposures shape health, development, and socioeconomic outcomes across the life course.

These studies use cohort designs with repeated measurements at multiple time points. Data come from questionnaires, clinical assessments, administrative records, and sometimes retrospective life histories. Linkage to registries allows tracking of outcomes such as education, income, disease, and mortality, enabling analyses of developmental trajectories and timing of exposures.

Analyses model trajectories and pathways using growth curve modeling, latent class analysis, survival methods, or structural equation models. Researchers examine how early factors (for example, birth conditions, family SES, and parental health) influence later outcomes, accounting for time-varying and time-invariant confounders.

Life-course studies inform policy by identifying when interventions may be most effective and by clarifying mechanisms behind health disparities, cognitive development, and social attainment. They are central to life-course epidemiology, developmental origins of health and disease, and social determinants research.

Strengths include the ability to establish temporal sequences and to study developmental processes. Limitations include attrition, cost, long time horizons, risk of bias from missing data, and privacy concerns related to tracking individuals over time.

Notable examples include birth cohort studies and long-term health development cohorts conducted in several countries. See also life-course epidemiology, longitudinal study, and cohort study.