Welcome to the BC Generations Project

The BC Generations Project is a major health research project investigating environmental, lifestyle and genetic factors in the development of cancer and other serious diseases in British Columbia, Canada.

The BC Generations Project is part of a national study funded by the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer, a federal body established to develop a national cancer control strategy. Other regions involved in the national study are Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, and the Atlantic provinces.

The national goal is to recruit approximately 300,000 men and women between the ages of 35 and 69 from across Canada. BC Generations Project will work in collaboration with the other provinces to meet this goal, and our aim will be to recruit 40,000 men and women between the ages of 40 and 69 years in British Columbia. Study participants will visit special clinics to complete questionnaires on health, diet and lifestyle, have various physical measurements taken and provide biological samples.

The project begins recruiting early in 2009 in the Greater Vancouver Regional District and rolls out through the rest of British Columbia over the next few years.

The project will track study participants for 25 years or longer, periodically requesting them to complete additional questionnaires, have further measurements taken and provide additional biological samples. Participants' health outcomes will also be followed through cancer registries, and other provincial and federal health-related databases.

Eventually, researchers will be able to see which participants get cancer, heart, lung, or other diseases and to determine whether there are environmental, lifestyle, genetic or other risk factors which may have contributed to the development of cancer.

The information collected through the BC Generations Project will be a major resource for epidemiological, clinical and basic health research in British Columbia and the rest of the country, providing the basis for developing better prevention and screening programs, and reducing the number of Canadians developing and dying from cancer and other serious diseases.