A national macro-project launched in Hospitalet de Llobregat study why people get sick to promote precision medicine

The IMPaCT Cohort study, promoted by the Carlos III Health Institute of the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities through its Biomedical Research Network Centre (CIBER), will monitor the health and lifestyle of 200,000 people from all over Spain, 4,000 of them from La Florida neighbourhood of Hospitalet de Llobregat, for twenty years

The IMPaCT Cohort macro-study has been launched in the La Florida neighborhood of Hospitalet de Llobregat, a state-wide project through which we want to better understand the origin of the main diseases and thus help prevent and treat them, applying personalized and precision medicine techniques. To this end, over the next twenty years an exhaustive health study will be carried out on a representative sample of the population. Throughout Spain, this sample will include 200,000 people, of which 24,000 are from Catalonia.

The project is promoted by the Carlos III Health Institute of the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. In Catalonia, it is coordinated by the Institut d’Investigació en Atenció Primària Jordi Gol (IDIAPJGol), in collaboration with the Catalan Health Service (CatSalut) and the Catalan Health Institute (ICS).

In Hospitalet de Llobregat, the study will cover the population of the La Florida neighbourhood, attended by the Florida Nord and Florida Sud primary care teams. This area is populated by around 50,000 people. A representative sample of 4,000 individuals is selected from this population.

This is one of the six areas of Catalonia where this study is being carried out, together with the Baix Francolí area, in the Camp de Tarragona; the Ebre Delta; Manresa, and Sant Fost de Campsentelles, Santa Maria de Martorelles and Martorelles.

The study sample includes people aged between 16 and 79 who are called by the primary care centre (CAP) where the research is coordinated to ask if they want to participate. The participants are monitored by collecting information about their lifestyle habits and health status, through questionnaires, physical examinations and physiological tests and the analysis of biomarkers, which are carried out in the CAP itself.

If they call you, come!

To ensure the success of the project, it is essential that the people who are invited to participate agree to collaborate.

In this regard, Josep Basora, director of IDIAPJGol and principal investigator of the study in Catalonia, highlights that “the collaboration of citizens in this project is essential and that is why it is key that they understand its potential, which will have an impact on improving the health of the entire population.”

Rocío Moreno, manager of Primary Care and in the Delta Community of the Catalan Institute of Health, adds that “primary care is at the centre of one of the largest studies ever carried out to advance towards personalized prevention and health care.”

For his part, the director of the L'Hospitalet-El Prat Health Sector of CatSalut, Daniel Fernández, stresses that “this is not just research, but an opportunity for citizens to influence their health and that of future generations”, and appealing to citizens, he states that “if you receive a call from your CAP, do not hesitate to participate; you will contribute to building a healthier future for the entire population”.

A great leap towards precision medicine

The project is promoted by the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII) through the Biomedical Research Centre in Network (CIBER) and aims to create a large population cohort of 200,000 people throughout Spain. “We want to know what role habits, genetic susceptibility and specific characteristics of the Spanish population and our environment play in the origin of the main health problems and in the prediction of diseases”, explains Marina Esquerrà, researcher at IDIAPJGol and coordinator of the study in Catalonia.

To prevent the onset of a disease, it is necessary to know well what factors cause it. Having information on many people and following them over time will allow us to predict in the future the risks of becoming ill that each person has. Advances in the field of genomics and information and communication technologies facilitate this personalized approach.

Population macrostudies such as the IMPaCT Cohort have been carried out in other countries, such as the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Sweden or the United States of America. These cohorts collect biological samples and epidemiological information, which includes social and economic factors, and constitute the basic tool to advance in personalized prevention. Thus, the IMPaCT Cohort will allow Spain to make a qualitative leap in research on precision medicine.

Data of great value for the scientific community

The data collected from participants will be available to develop other scientific projects of interest to society. “The IMPaCT Cohort will allow the scientific community to better understand how to prevent the main diseases and the deterioration associated with age, injuries and disability,” explains Beatriz Pérez, principal investigator of the IMPaCT Cohort in Spain and coordinator of the Department of Epidemiology of Chronic Diseases at the National Epidemiology Centre of the ISCIII.

The possibility of having a dynamic record of individual and population data, clinical, genetic, epidemiological and lifestyle data will allow predictive models of diseases to be built, inequalities in health to be identified, key indicators to be monitored and the impact of health policies to be evaluated.

Cohort studies

Cohorts are studies in which a large group of people representative of the population is selected, who collect exhaustive data from each participant over the years. The creation of the IMPaCT Cohort is a shared effort with health services throughout Spain and the National Institute of Statistics. 21 institutions collaborate, including primary care centres, hospitals and research institutes. Scientific coordination is carried out by the CIBER and has the advice and participation of numerous researchers and health professionals in the country.

The study will be carried out in a total of fifty health areas (IMPaCT centres) spread throughout Spain, six of them in Catalonia, from which participants will be contacted and monitored. The project began in March 2023 with a pilot test in Mallorca and Madrid. The study has then been progressively rolled out to other centres in the different autonomous communities.