Celebrating 25 Years of the Chingford 1,000 Women Study

Pictured L-R, Chris Austin, Medical Secretary, Holly House Hospital; Maxine Daniels, Chingford Study Co-ordinator; and Michelle Fox, Imaging Services Manager at Holly House Hospital. 

Staff from Holly House Hospital joined in celebrations yesterday to commemorate 25 Years of the Chingford 1,000 Women Study.

The event which took place in the Chigwell Prince Regent Hotel on Thursday 16 July was attended by almost 300 women who have participated in this long-term health study as well as health care professionals and researchers from a variety of organisations including The University of Oxford; University of Southhamption; Kings College, London; and Barts Health NHS Trust.

Speaking about the event, Michele Fox, Imaging Services Manager at Holly House Hospital said;

“It’s great to be able to join in this event to celebrate 25 years of the Chingford 1000 Women Study.  This fantastic research project research is so important because it has followed such a large number of women over so many years providing consistent data for analysis.

Holly House Hospital has been involved in the project through providing imaging support for the study, utilising our x-ray services. Our team have been taking various views of both feet and ankle joints of the study volunteers which are then analysed by the university team.

X-ray forms an essential part of our overall imaging capabilities here at Holly House Hospital which include a state of the art 3 Tesla MRI scanner, CT scanner, ultrasound, mammography and DEXA services.”

About the Chingford 1000 Women Study
The Chingford 1000 Women Study was set up in June 1989 with 1003 female volunteers, to look at the health of women in mid-life, and follow them through the years around and after the menopause.

It was established in 1989 as a retrospective case-control study to determine prevalence rates of osteoarthritis (OA) and osteoporosis (OP) in middle-aged women in the general population, and to assess a number of known risk factors and their associations with these two diseases. It has since become a prospective population-based longitudinal cohort of women seen annually and described in detail (Hart DJ & Spector TD). It is listed by the NIH as an important epidemiological resource and one of the few such cohorts with wide-ranging musculoskeletal data.

Other aspects of health that the study looks at include:

• fractures & falls
• heart disease
• blood pressure
• height & weight
• memory
• joint pain
• genetics
• environmental aspects
• cancer and other illnesses
• use of hormone replacement therapy
• effects on feet of wearing high heels
• effects of smoking
• effects of alcohol
• effects of diet
• balance
• diabetes
• cholesterol

A number of clinical, anthropometric, psychosocial, radiological and metabolic variables have been collected at two or more time points. Investigations have been carried out on all subjects and DNA samples on 900 individuals have been collected at least twice between 1994 and 2000. Almost 60 publications (in high quality rheumatology and bone journals) have been based on data from this cohort.

The strength of the Chingford Study in the last 5 years has been its use for collaborative research due to the detail of the longitudinal data. Researchers have been able to determine not only common risk factors for musculo-skeletal disease within the subjects, but to investigate associated genetic and biologic phenotypes in the cohort and explore new methodology in imaging longitudinal changes in these common diseases.

For more information on the Chingford 1,000 Women Study visit www.chingfordstudy.org.uk/

To find out more about Diagnostics at Holly House Hospital visit www.hollyhouse-hospital.co.uk/diagnostic-imaging/