DMTA regulations

This page provides you with a convenient overview of the publication rules listed in the DMTA

DMTA regulations

The Data and/or Material Agreement (DMTA) is a legal document which has been signed at the start of your research project at Lifelines. You can always request a copy of your project's DMTA at Lifelines by emailing research@lifelines.nl.

Mandatory phrases and references

For findability and visibility of Lifelines

  1. Acknowledgement of Lifelines in the title or abstract of all publications using Lifelines data, by using the phrases"Lifelines Cohort Study" or "Lifelines".
  2. Inclusion of the following sentences:
    "Lifelines is a multi-disciplinary prospective population-based cohort study examining in a unique three-generation design the health and health-related behaviours of 167,729 persons living in the North of the Netherlands. It employs a broad range of investigative procedures in assessing the biomedical, socio-demographic, behavioural, physical and psychological factors which contribute to the health and disease of the general population, with a special focus on multi-morbidity and complex genetics".

Acknowledgement of funds
Please include the following sentence to acknowledge the funding parties that have made the start of Lifelines possible:
"The Lifelines  initiative has been made possible by subsidy from the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG), Groningen University and the Provinces in the North of the Netherlands (Drenthe, Friesland, Groningen)."

Non-mandatory inclusions

Reference to cohort papers
Please use one or more of the following references to our cohort papers when introducing Lifelines in your manuscript (MLA referencing):

  1. Stolk, Ronald P., et al. "Universal risk factors for multifactorial diseases." European journal of epidemiology 23.1 (2008): 67-74.
  2. Scholtens, Salome, et al. "Cohort Profile: LifeLines, a three-generation cohort study and biobank." International journal of epidemiology 44.4 (2015): 1172-1180.
  3. Sijtsma, Anna, et al. "Cohort Profile Update: Lifelines, a three-generation cohort study and biobank." International journal of epidemiology (2021).

To express thanks
If the authors wish to express their thanks, the following statement may be used:
"The authors wish to acknowledge the services of the Lifelines Cohort Study, the contributing research centres delivering data to Lifelines, and all the study participants."

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

The short answer is: partially. We do understand that with the specific requirements in these cases it is often not possible to include all references Lifelines requires. However, some aspects should be included:

  • Compliance with the "data publication criteria"
  • Mentioning "Lifelines" or "Lifelines Cohort Study" in the title or text
  • Submitting the poster/report/abstract/conference talk to Lifelines before submission for documentation purposes (also allowing us to possibly share the information on our social media or with our participants)

If possible, it would be highly appreciated when the following reference is included:
"Lifelines is a multi-disciplinary prospective population-based cohort study examining in a unique three-generation design the health and health-related behaviours of 167,729 persons living in the North of the Netherlands. It employs a broad range of investigative procedures in assessing the biomedical, socio-demographic, behavioural, physical and psychological factors which contribute to the health and disease of the general population, with a special focus on multi-morbidity and complex genetics."

Yes. In general, the same (non)mandatory inclusions apply. Please note: these inclusion criteria cover the Lifelines data only. It is up to you to make sure you follow the regulations for other data sources as well.

It should be clear that Lifelines data has been used in your study. However, we do understand that you cannot include required references/sentences for all cohorts. Our minimal requirements are 1) to mention Lifelines in your manuscript, and 2) to include one of the Lifelines cohort papers or a link to our website. An alternative option is to include the compulsory information in a supplement.

No, we do not request researchers to include Lifelines as a co-author on your manuscript. However, if it is requested you can include "Lifelines Cohort Study". An alternative is to include the statement listed to express thanks.

Yes we do. You can use (a version of) the following sentences:
“Data may be obtained from a third party and are not publicly available. Researchers can apply to use the Lifelines data used in this study. More information about how to request Lifelines data and the conditions of use can be found on their website (https://www.lifelines.nl/researcher/how-to-apply).”

Yes. The Lifelines protocol has been approved by the UMCG Medical ethical committee under number 2007/152.