Study population and design
PRETERM BIRTH
The present study was conducted as part of the EVA-Tyrol study, a population-based, non-randomized controlled trial at the Department of Pediatrics II at the Medical University of Innsbruck. EVA-Tyrol is aiming to assess the prevalence of CV health profiles and the efficacy of a health promotion intervention on CV risk factors and health behaviors in a cohort of adolescents in the whole federal province of Tyrol (Austria) with a population of about 745,000 inhabitants and in Bruneck, a city in the autonomous province of Bolzano/South Tyrol (Italy) with about 80,000 inhabitants. Local schools and big companies were contacted and pupils and apprentices with a target age between 14 and 19 years were invited to take part in this study. Whole school classes were recruited thus some older students or apprentices, who wanted to participate were also included. 2273 persons did express their interest in participation in the EVA Tyrol study, yet 171 did either not sign the informed consent or signed the informed consent but did not show up on the examination day. For the latter group no study specific measures were performed. All participants provided a written informed consent or if the participants had not attained the age of 18 years, a parent or legal guardian additionally provided written consent.The study was designed with an intervention group, which received a baseline examination and was invited to a follow-up examination after receiving a health intervention, and a control group. For this exploratory data analysis, information from both the baseline and the control group without health intervention was used to achieve a representative cohort of the adolescent population, in the following they are referred to as the EVA-cohort. A detailed description of the study protocol has been previously published [The present study represents a subanalysis of the EVA-Tyrol study and highlights data on the impact of preterm birth on cardiovascular health.