Objective  To examine historical development and present status of cohort studies in China and to provide references for the establishment of domestic research cohorts.

  Method  Through PubMed, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Chinese Biology Medicine (CBM) database, we retrieved cohort studies in China published till March 10th, 2019; we also collected information on cohort studies newly established in China between January 1st, 2016 and May 1st 2019 via the websites of Public Service Platform of National Science and Technology Information System, Development Center for Medical Science and Technology of National Health Commission of the People′s Republic of China, and China National Center for Biotechnology Development. Historical development and present status of cohort studies in China were analyzed based on the data collected.

  Results  Totally 470 published cohort studies in China were enrolled in the study, including 360 (76.60%) prospective, 103 (21.91%) historical and 7 (1.49%) ambispective studies; of all the studies, 177 (37.66%) were conducted in general populations and 88 (18.72%) in maternal and child groups; 154 (32.77%), 45 (9.57%), and 6 (1.28%) were for specific diseases, occupational diseases, and mortality, respectively. A total of 26 newly established cohorts were identified, of which 23 (88.46%) were on precision medicine initiative, 1 (3.85%) on prevention and control of reproductive health and major birth defects, and 2 (7.69%) on major non-communicable chronic diseases; of all the new cohorts, 8 (30.77%) were established in general populations and 18 (69.23%) in populations susceptible to specific diseases. The first cohort in China was established among a occupational population for prospective study cohort in 1974. More cohort studies were conducted in Beijing and Shanghai municipality, Jiangsu and Guangdong province, and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and more cohort studies involved a relatively small number of participants. For all the published cohort studies, 345 (73.40%) had no new results to be published in the last three years, of which, 25 (7.25%) followed up the participants more than 20 years; while 125 (26.60%) were still going on. During 2016 – 2018, a total of 26 cohort studies were approved by National Key Research and Development Plan and these studies were sponsored by institutions in 10 provincial regions; of the approved cohort studies, 14 (53.8%), 3 (11.5%), and 2 (7.6%) were sponsored by the institutions in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shanxi province, respectively. The total funding to the approved cohort studies was 392 790 000 RMB yuan and 32.10% and 16.55% of the funding were for the studies sponsored by the institutions in Beijing and Jiangsu province.

  Conclusion  Cohort studies in China were conducted relatively late and the studies were generally with smaller sample size, shorter follow-up duration and being carried out in limited regions.