In his paper, we report the motivations and characteristics of the Pro-Saude Study with emphasis on its scope and methods. Longitudinal studies of "healthy" populations of working age in Brazilian large cities are still scarse. In these settings, aspects of contemporary life may modify characteristics of several exposures and possibly their effects; on the other hand, their inhabitants' living and working conditions may pose special difficulties to the conduction in general population samples of cohort studies planning a long follow-up. Populations of civil servants have level of education which allow the use of efficient methods of data collection (e.g. self-administered questionnaires). In addition, they may have sufficiently socioeconomic heterogeneity, and job stability making follow-up more feasible. Subjetcs (3,253) were civil servants at a public university in Rio de Janeiro participating in baseline data collection (phases 1 and 2, 1999-2001) will be followed up. We utilized self-administered questionnaires, and measured weight, height, waist circumference, and blood pressure. The study focuses mainly on social determinants of health. We investigated in detail markers of socioeconomic position, race/ethnicity, religion, marital and migration history. Relative indicators were emphasized, such as inequality and social trajectories, and contextual effects of residence areas and job sectors. Finally, issues largely unexplored in our population are studied, e.g. social network and support, job stress, and experiences of discrimination.
Cohort studies; Social determinants; Adult health
