The Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) is a government agency under the Ministry of Health and Care Services. NIPH has four divisions within the field of Health Services. The Department of Child Development is responsible for The Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) which is a unique study where over 90,000 pregnant women were recruited from 1998 to 2008. The department focuses especially on research related to environmental factors that affect children and young people's development. The department's research and health analyses are based on the NIPH's vast data collection (epidemiological cohort studies and health registries) and on more or less targeted studies involving specific groups or limited topics. NIPH researchers hold specialist expertise on complex statistical methodologies. MoBa contains information from around 114,000 children, 95,000 mothers and 75,000 fathers. For most participants, blood samples (DNA, plasma, whole blood) were collected in the period 1999–2009. As MoBa has sample material from trios (mother, father and child), the study is well suited to understand how genetic factors affect disease.