o Cohort study became the major approach to study of chronic diseases such as CVD and cancer o Cohort can be population-based or volunteer-based o Types of be population-be categorized by source population and selection mechanism o More and more cohort studies involve biological specimens, such as blood, urine, toenail, cheek cells, etc. o Multi-center and multi-national collaboration is an effective way to increase sample size. o Current statistical method typically use time-to-event analysis by Cox proportional hazard model.