The Center of Epidemiological Research (CPE) is formed by a group of researchers that investigates, mainly, the influence of inherent factors in the birth and first years of life periods on the individual’s health along all his/her life.
The aims of this investigation are: to know the populations health, to identify the causes of their main diseases, and to develop preventive strategies that may benefit the greatest number of people.

In order to achieve those aims, CPE keeps one of the biggest birth cohorts programs of the world, which is the biggest among developing countries.
The CPE group maintains in its studies 15 thousand participants, who are part of three different cohorts. The first birth cohort is related to all 1982 births (5.914 people), the second one is related to all 1993 births (5.249 people), and the third one is related to all 2004 births (4.231 people), all of them in Pelotas.

CPE has been investigating those people for three decades, comparing the generations.
By having published more than 500 scientific articles, CPE follow-up studies have been contributing to the knowledge about child mortality, breastfeeding, cesarean, malnutrition, and obesityin a relevant way for the development of many preventive strategies.

CPE is also interested in other related areas of investigation, especially in researches about evaluation of health programs impact, health inequalities, and human nutrition.
Because of that, CPE is a Collaborating Center on the Maternal and Child Nutrition of the World Health Organization, the National Reference Center in Food and Nutrition of the Health Ministry and LatinAmerican Excellence Center of Wellcome Trust Foundation.

The wide experience in epidemiological studies allowed CPE researchers, which were professors of the Federal University of Pelotas (UFPel), to create the Postgraduate Program in Epidemiology (PPGE).
The Program maintains three postgraduate courses – Master’s, Doctorate and a Master of Professional Studies.
The PPGE is the first Brazilian postgraduate course to receive the maximum grade (7) in the Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education (CAPES/MEC) triennial evaluation.

Other studies

Besides the birth cohorts studies, the group of researchers develops other epidemiological studies that have a national and an international coverage, such as:

• Studies of the World Health Organization’s Growth Curves

  CPE researchers, together with scientists of other five countries, developed an international reference tool of children growth, for children who are up to 5 years old. The study investigated 8.500 children from Pelotas (Brazil), Davis (United States), Accra (Ghana), New Delhi (India), Oslo (Norway), and Oman (Muscat). Governments of most of the countries of the world use the new growth curve.



• Platino

  CPE researchers, together with scientists from four LatinAmerican countries, developed the LatinAmerican Project for the Investigation of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (PLATINO). This project aimed to analyzethe disease occurrence, as well as its main risks in five LatinAmerican cities: Sao Paulo (Brazil), Mexico City (Mexico), Montevideo (Uruguay), Santiago (Chile), and Caracas (Venezuela).
  

• Intergrowth

  CPE researchers, together with researchers of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of the Universityof Oxford (UK), have been developing the International Fetal and Newborn Growth Standards for the 21st Century. The objective of the study is to develop new international standards describing fetal and neonatal growth for clinical practical use and monitoring populations’ trends. Ten countries are involved in this study.
  

• International Center for Analysis and Monitoring of Equity in Health and Nutrition

  CPE researchers are responsible for performing and advising epidemiological research and analyses of specific aspects of Brazilian and foreign health inequalities. The study has been happening through the International Center for Analyses and Monitoring of Equity in Health and Nutrition, which consists of many international organizations, such as WHO, UNICEF and UFNPA, bilateral funding agencies for development, and of non-governmental and academic organizations, including the Federal University of Pelotas (UFPel), which was one of the initiative's founding institutions in 2005.
  

• Know more about our studies.