Study of Health in Pomerania

The Study of Health in Pomerania (SHIP) is a population-based epidemiological study consisting of two independent cohorts (SHIP and SHIP-TREND). The SHIP investigates common risk factors, subclinical disorders and manifest diseases with highly innovative non-invasive methods in the high-risk population of northeast Germany. The study is not interested in one specific disease. The SHIP study´s main aims include the investigation of health in all its aspects and complexity involving the collection and assessment of data relevant to the prevalence and incidence of common, population-relevant diseases and their risk factors. The Study of Health in Pomerania (SHIP) is a population-based epidemiological study consisting of two independent cohorts (SHIP and SHIP-TREND). The SHIP investigates common risk factors, subclinical disorders and manifest diseases with highly innovative non-invasive methods in the high-risk population of northeast Germany. The study is not interested in one specific disease. The SHIP study´s main aims include the investigation of health in all its aspects and complexity involving the collection and assessment of data relevant to the prevalence and incidence of common, population-relevant diseases and their risk factors. The aims of both studies are: (i) investigation of the long-term progression of subclinical findings, their determinants and prognostic values (SHIP-2); (ii) analysis of the secular trend of subclinical and overt diseases and their determinants in a high-risk population (SHIP-TREND vs SHIP-0); and (iii) assessment of the prevalence of subclinical findings (SHIP-TREND). For SHIP-0, a sample of 7008 women and men aged 20 to 79 years was drawn in the cities of Greifswald, Stralsund and Anklam and 29 communities in the surrounding region which is part of West Pomerania, a region in the northeast of Germany, adjacent to the Baltic Sea in the north and to the Polish border in the east. West Pomerania is the north-eastern part of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, one of the 16 federal German states. A separate stratified random sample of 8016 adults aged 20–79 years was drawn for SHIP-TREND in the same area. Currently, data are collected for the second examination follow-up of the first SHIP cohort (SHIP-2) and baseline examinations of the second SHIP cohort (SHIP-TREND).