Aragón participates in a project to study the health of 8.000 people for 20 years

 The 'Impact Cohort' study seeks to know why the Spanish population gets sick and how it can be prevented, with the project being carried out in four autonomous communities. In Aragón, this program is developed through the Aragón Health Research Institute and is coordinated by Luis Hijós. Work has already begun in the rural node of Monzón.

An ambitious project promoted by the Carlos III Health Institute will configure a group of up to 200.000 people representative of the Spanish population (8.000 in Aragon) who will undergo a test for 20 years. monitoring of your lifestyle and social and environmental context, clinical situation and other factors to better understand the origin of the main diseases and thus help prevent them. The 'Impact Cohort' pilot study is carried out in four communities. Aragón, through the Health Research Institute of Aragón (IIS Aragón), the Department of Health and the Aragonese Health Service, is one of them, along with the Balearic Islands, Castilla-La Mancha and Madrid.

The program in Aragón is coordinated by Luis Hijós, from the IIS Aragón, and It has started in the rural node of Monzón, made up of the basic health zones of Barbastro, Binéfar, Monzón Urbano and Monzón Rural. One of the requirements is that all of them have at least 50.000 health cards. The collection of information from the first participants contacted to take part has already begun, who have attended health centers enabled as Impact centers. In the Community, Hijós summarizes, there are 8.000 participants: 4.000 would correspond to the rural area – assigned to the Monzón node – and another 4.000, to the urban area. The latter will be the next to be implemented and could be completed in Zaragoza capital before the end of the year.

In Aragón, the commitment of around 100 participants has been reached to date. The recruitment of those who are part of this program will take place during the first five years. Hence the importance of citizen participation. People whose basic health area is part of the pilot study may be contacted to participate in the study. From the project coordination they make a call to the citizens, with the 'If you receive a call from your center, don't hesitate, come' campaign. A person cannot volunteer. To guarantee a faithful representation of the Spanish population, participants are chosen at random, as long as they are between 16 and 79 years old and are residents of Spain with public health coverage. In general, 30% of the chosen centers will be in rural areas and another 70% in urban areas.

The 'Impact Cohort' project will collect information from participating people through questionnaires, physical examinations, physiological tests and analysis of biomarkers in biological samples, which will be carried out in each health center. The project "will have an impact on improving the health of the entire population." “It is a project for everyone and for everyone,” summarize the promoters of this study: “Because to prevent the appearance of a disease, we must know well what causes that disease. Thus, having information from a large number of people and follow them in time "It will allow us to predict the risks of getting sick at an individual level in the future, also thanks to advances in genomics, the digital field and ICT, which facilitate this personalized approach."

At the beginning of their participation, and once every five years, participants will receive a complete physical examination, answer a detailed health questionnaire, and have biological samples taken. In addition, more frequent follow-up contacts will be made by phone or with computer applications. All this information will be completed with what is available in clinical or statistical databases. To establish the study variables, we have had nearly 70 specialist researchers in different subjects.

Impact is the Precision Medicine Infrastructure associated with Science and Technology created by the Carlos III Health Institute to facilitate the effective deployment of precision medicine in the National Health System. It is configured from three programs that act as the initial axis of an action that must structure the coherent incorporation of complementary research projects in the field of precision medicine: Data Science, Predictive Medicine and Genomic Medicine. These last two programs are coordinated by Ciber (Networked Biomedical Research Center).

Header image: A researcher from IIS Aragón and a participant in the 'Impact Cohort' consultation in Monzón. IIS Aragon.

Source: Herald of Aragon.