Study design
The German National Cohort (NAKO) is a long-term study to investigate common diseases. The randomly selected NAKO participants are repeatedly invited to their local study centre for a series of medical examinations and interviews.
- The initial examinations were carried out between 2014 and 2018.
- After four to five years between 2018 and 2024, an identical follow-up examination was carried out to see whether and what had changed in the participants in the meantime.
- The third survey will start in May 2024. In addition, a health questionnaire is completed by the study participants every two to three years.
The data from the German National Cohort (NAKO) examination programme is available to researchers for scientific projects.
All 205,000 study participants received the programme in the first examination phase in two variants of varying complexity.
- The basic Level 1 programme comprised medical examinations lasting around four hours.
- 40,000 participants took part in the additional Level 2 programme, which lasted six hours and contained more tests than the basic programme.
- 30,000 participants also underwent an MRI examination.
Since the start of the follow-up programme, in which over 130,000 participants have been examined to date, no distinction has been made between Level 1 and Level 2 examinations.
Study centres
All examinations take place in our 18 NAKO study centres throughout Germany. Each study centre is responsible for its own study region.
Five locations (Augsburg, Berlin, Essen, Mannheim and Neubrandenburg) also enable MRI examinations to be carried out.
When determining the study locations, great importance was attached to ensuring that the study centres are not only located in urban areas, but also in rural regions with low population density.
Click on the locations to go to the German-language page of the respective study centre.
Kiel
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(Content in German)
Neubrandenburg
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Neubrandenburg
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Hamburg
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Bremen
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Berlin-Nord
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Berlin-Mitte
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Berlin-Süd/Brandenburg
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Berlin-Nord
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Berlin-Mitte
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Berlin-Süd/Brandenburg
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(Content in German)
Hannover
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Münster
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Essen
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Essen
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Düsseldorf
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Halle
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Leipzig
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Mannheim
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Mannheim
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Saarbrücken
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Regensburg
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Augsburg
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Augsburg
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Freiburg
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