Cohort profile: the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Hospital Exposures and Long-Term Health (NICU-HEALTH) cohort, a prospective preterm birth cohort in New York City

What is it about?

•	The NICU-HEALTH cohort is the first comprehensive longitudinal preterm birth cohort with a primary focus on NICU-based environmental exposures.
•	The NICU-HEALTH study comprises a large cohort of moderately preterm children with biological samples linked to detailed demographic and clinical data regarding the intensive care course and longitudinal follow up to age 3 years using standardized assessment measures and survey tools. 
•	Mothers of preterm infants are also enrolled, and provide both their own biospecimens and significant information about stressful life events, depressive symptoms, and dietary history during pregnancy, during the NICU stay, and after NICU discharge.
•	NICU-HEALTH takes an exposomics approach throughout the highly controlled and continuously observed NICU hospitalization, collecting data about the physical, chemical, and social environment, in addition to biobanking specimens for multi-omic analyses.
•	Although rates of medical morbidity related to prematurity among moderately preterm infants are low, confounding by indication can be challenging in some NICU-HEALTH analyses, requiring complex statistical techniques.

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