The life course approach can be defined as the study of long-term effects on later health or disease risk of physical or social exposures during gestation, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, and later adult life. The catalyst for a life course approach in epidemiology stemmed from the revival of interest in the role of early life factors in cardiovascular and other chronic diseases, particularly the ecological and historical cohort studies used to explore the fetal origins hypothesis. To counteract the increasing polarisation of biological programming in utero and adult lifestyle approaches to chronic disease aetiology, life course epidemiology was built on the premise that various biological and social factors throughout life independently, cumulatively and interactively influence health and disease in adult life.
