Through our internationally recognised Developmental Origins of Health and Disease Centre we are developing successful interventions for mothers and babies in the UK and around the world.<br>Through our internationally recognised Developmental Origins of Health and Disease Centre we incorporate the work of the Medical Research Council Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit LEU), the NIHR Nutrition Biomedical Research Centre and the University's Institute of Developmental Sciences. Our mission is to provide a centre of excellence using epidemiological methods to promote human health by:<br> delineating the environmental causes throughout the lifecourse of chronic musculoskeletal disorders, diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular disease, and thereby developing population-based and high risk preventive strategies against these disorders, maintaining and developing long-term cohort studies assembled in Southampton as national and international resources to explore the developmental origins of health and disease (the Hertfordshire Cohort Study, the Southampton Women's Survey, the Southampton Initiative for Health, and the MAVIDOS trial, informing health policy and practice through the provision of authoritative evidence and knowledge synthesis, and (d) promoting training, research capacity development, knowledge transfer and public engagement in the lifecourse epidemiology of chronic disease.