What can population-based cohorts bring to public health in Switzerland - Murielle Bochud - 10.10.2019

Population-based cohorts are essential to monitor the health status of the population, assess the disease burden, further our understanding of the determinants of health, whether social, economic, environmental, related to lifestyle or molecular. Prospectively collected longitudinal health data are key to provide insight into the natural history and the early determinants of diseases. Large scale cohorts conducted in other countries, and hence other socio-economic settings and health care systems, do not provide information on the exposure of the Swiss population. The fragmented nature of the Swiss health systems and the absence of a large scale national population-based cohort leads to important gaps in our understanding of the detailed trajectories of people across work and medico-social environments or within the Swiss health care systems. In a context of population ageing and rapidly increasing health care costs, a better understanding of how ressources are being used is of key strategic importance. Close longitudinal monitoring of mental health and well-being is needed in all age groups in a context of a globalized economy, rapidly changing climate and work environments in order to better allocate ressources and target public health interventions to those who most need it.

Prof. Dr. med, Murielle Bochud, Department of Epidemiology and Health Systems, Center for Primary Care and Public Health (Unisanté), University of Lausanne, Lausanne Switzerland

Murielle Bochud holds a diploma in medicine from the University of Geneva (Switzerland, 1994), an MD from the University of Lausanne (Switzerland, 2002) and a PhD in genetic epidemiology from Case University (2007, Cleveland, USA). She was certified in prevention and public health (FMH) in 2010. She currently works as a full professor of epidemiology and public health and head of Department of Epidemiology and Health Systems, Center for Primary Care and Public Health (Unisanté), University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland. Her research focuses on the epidemiology of chronic diseases. She is also developing nutritional epidemiology with specific interest in dietary determinants of common chronic diseases. Her work is based on a multidisciplinary approach with epidemiologists, public health specialists, clinicians, statisticians and bioinformaticians. She is the principal investigator of the Swiss Kidney Project on Genes in Hypertension (SKIPOGH) and a co-investigator of the CoLaus-PsyCoLaus cohort. She has been involved in population-based cohorts since more than 15 years.