Pre-pregnancy and pregnancy cohorts: a scoping review protocol

Introduction: Recent research in life course epidemiology has demonstrated the importance of evaluating how pre-pregnancy and pregnancy exposures affect later life developmental outcomes. While the fields of nutrition, non-communicable disease, and social epidemiology have examined a diversity of birth- and longer-term outcomes related to different exposures during pregnancy, little information exists on other types of exposures, including infectious, medication, and vaccine-related exposures. In this review, we describe completed or ongoing pregnancy and pre-pregnancy cohorts to assess gaps in the exposures and outcomes measured in these initiatives to inform future research investments. Methods and analysis: We will apply the Arskey and O’Malley scoping review methodology and use the National Institutes of Health quality assessment tool for cohort studies. The systematic search strategy was developed and tailored for Ovid Medline and Embase, LILACs, and Web of Science with the assistance of an information scientist. We selected a scoping review rather than a systematic review methodology because this review is meant to provide a comprehensive overview of pregnancy and pre-pregnancy cohorts, rather than to focus on the findings from related research. The title-abstract and full text screening and data charting will be conducted independently by two reviewers. Discrepancies will be resolved by a third reviewer and results will be summarised in narrative form. Ethics and dissemination: This scoping review summarizes findings from existing publications in peer reviewed journals and does not require ethics review. Findings will be disseminated through an open access publication.