Information for participants

The first phase of recruitment of BELCOHORT started in February 2024 until March 2024, more than 40,000 households were invited to participate in the BELCOHORT study. We thank everyone who responded favorably to the invitation.

The second phase of recruitment is now open until April 30, 2025.

Everyone living in Belgium and aged 18 to 79 years can participate. You can also share this invitation with people around you, including via social media, and invite them to surf on this website.

To participate in BELCOHORT, you can register using the following link:

I would like to join BELCOHORT

To participate, you will need to mention via the link above:

       1. your national register number (This information will only be accessible by the Belgian statistical office (Statbel) in order to be able to follow you over time in the context of BELCOHORT. Researchers will not have access to this information)

       2. your date of birth and gender,

       3. if you wish to receive the questionnaire by email and complete it online OR receive the paper questionnaire by post,

       4. your e-mail address (in case you want to receive the questionnaire by e-mail).

Here you will find the leaflet with all the information relating to your participation in this project.

We remind you that your participation is not mandatory and you can decide to end your participation at any time.

Your participation in BELCOHORT implies that you accept:

• to receive and complete one to two annual questionnaires lasting 30 minutes, until the end of the pilot phase of the study on December 31, 2025. If after this date BELCOHORT evolves into a large epidemiological cohort Belgian, you will be contacted to continue participating. You will of course be free to refuse at that time.
• that your responses to the questionnaires will be linked in a confidential manner with different data sources existing in Belgium. This linkage will allow scientific studies to assess the impact of social and environmental determinants on health and will focus on administrative data (e.g. labor market, healthcare reimbursement) or environmental data (e.g. air pollution). Researchers working with this data will never be able to identify you. 
• that we will contact you in the future to offer to participate, without obligation, in health examinations (such as measuring weight, height or blood pressure), or for the collection of biological samples (blood, saliva, etc.). These types of data collection are not envisaged in this pilot phase of BELCOHORT but will be planned in a later stage and will be subject to approval by an ethics committee. Of course, this will always be done with your consent and you will receive feedback on your results.

Other documentation for participants:

• BELCOHORT Newsletter — May 2024
• BELCOHORT Newsletter — February 2025

   

  I want to know more about the protection of my data and privacy

  Who is taking the initiative for this study?

  Researchers from Sciensano: Dr Johan Van der Heyden and Dr Pierre Smith from the Health Information Service.

  Ethics and insurance

  The project was approved by the ethics committee of the University Hospital Ghent (UZ Gent) and the University of Ghent (UGent).

  The study is conducted in accordance with Good Clinical Practice Guidelines and the Declaration of Helsinki, developed to protect individuals participating in health and medical research. 

  There is no health risk to participating in this study. However, Sciensano assumes full responsibility for any damage you may suffer as a result of your participation in this study and has taken out insurance (n° 45.486.508, info.assurance@ethias.be) in accordance with the law on human experiments of May 7, 2004.

  There is no cost to you for participating in this study, but there is no financial benefit either.

  Protection of your data

  Your participation is completely voluntary and you may decide to discontinue your participation at any time. The information you provide via the questionnaire will only be used for the purposes indicated in the invitation letter you received and on the BELCOHORT project webpage. Sciensano will only use this information to compile general statistics.

  Rights, data storage and data access

  In accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), you have the right to request access, rectification, erasure, restriction and a copy of your data. You also have the right to withdraw consent at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal. You can exercise your rights by preference via our online form.  If you choose to share your e-mail address to receive the questionnaires, this e-mail address will only be retained until the end of the project and will be deleted afterwards. The other data will be stored for 30 years in a pseudonimised way. 

  Once the survey data arrives to Sciensano, it is stripped of its identification information (e-mail) by a collaborator who is not involved in the data analysis. The survey data are placed in a folder accessible only to the scientific collaborators involved in this study. The scientific collaborators involved in the study will have access to the survey data, but will not have access to the link between the e-mails and the responses of the participants. This means that the researchers at Sciensano will not be able to identify you. 

  Please note that as soon as the mail addresses are deleted, it will be difficult to know which data belongs to which person. Sciensano would therefore need additional information from the applicant who wants to execute his rights of access, modification or deletion.

  Who is responsible for the processing of the data?

  Sciensano is responsible for the processing of the data. The processing is based on the ground of consent (art. 6.1 (a) of the General Data Protection  regulation (GDPR)). Consent provides the legal exception to process data concerning health. (art. 9.2 (a), of the GDPR).  The processing of data is done by authorized persons, under supervision by the project coordinator (Dr. Johan Van der Heyden and Dr. Pierre Smith from the Health Information service). Contact: e-mail (belcohort@sciensano.be) or phone (02/642 57 26 or 02/642 51 46).

  Sciensano is the legal responsible for the processing of your contact details (name and residence address), carried out in accordance with authorization 00½020 of the National Registry, with the aim of inviting you to participate in the “BELCOHORT project”. You can contact Sciensano at belcohort@sciensano.be. Sciensano does not have your contact details but calls on Statbel, the Belgian statistical office, which has access to the national register within the framework of its legal mission. Your contact details will only be used for this study and will not be shared with other parties. Only pseudonimized data will be accessible to research groups outside Sciensano. 

  Questions or complaints about data protection?

  If you have any question about data protection, please contact the Sciensano Data Protection Officer via DPO@sciensano.be (link is external) or 02/642 51 02. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, hereto, you can contact the Belgian data protection authority: Drukpersstraat 35 — 1000 Brussels — Tel.: 02/274 48 00 — e-mail: contact@adp-gba.be.