Study design, participation and characteristics of the danish general suburban population study

INTRODUCTION: The aim of this article was to describe the study design, participants and baseline characteristics of The Danish General Suburban Population Study (GESUS) and to compare suburban participants with age- and gender-matched urban participants from the Copenhagen General Population Study (CGPS). MATERIAL AND METHODS: Data from questionnaire, health examination, biochemical measurements and public registers were collected. RESULTS: In GESUS the overall participation rate was 49.3% (response n = 10,621 of total n = 21,557). Among people aged 40-79 years, the participation rate was 53.9% (8,797/16,310). Participants were more frequently women, had a higher median age, a higher frequency of marriage/ registered partnerships, but had a lower frequency of comorbidities and death in the follow-up period (January 2010May 2011 (diseases)/June 2011 (death) than the non-participants. GESUS has sufficient power to study effects of rare and common exposures or genetic variants on the occurrence of common multifactorial diseases. Compared with an age- and gender-matched urban population (n = 10,618, CGPS), participants in GESUS (n = 10,618) were less physically active, smoked less and ingested less alcohol, had higher anthropometric measures, less undiagnosed hypertension but more undiagnosed diabetes, had a lower frequency of elevated total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol but higher frequency of decreased high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and elevated triglycerides. CONCLUSION: In GESUS, participants had a better health profile than non-participants, and participants in GESUS had a different cardiovascular risk profile than participants in participants in the CGPS.