In 2015, the Renal Division of Peking University First Hospital, in collaboration with the Kailuan study, has initiated the “Incidence, Development, and Prognosis of Diabetic Kidney Disease (INDEED) study”, supported by grants from the National Key R&D Program of the Ministry of Science and Technology. The INDEED study uses the design of prospective cohort study through the long-term follow-up of patients with diabetes and pre-diabetes in the Kailuan study, and establishes the biological specimen bank, which could reveal the occurrence and development of patients with DKD in China and make an attempt at the study of management of DKD.

At present, the Kailuan Group Limited Liability Corporation has about 100,000 retired employees whose work and residence are relatively stable. The INDEED study is an ongoing longitudinal cohort study based on the general population that began in 2006. Since the establishment of the INDEED study, the repeated follow‐up examinations were conducted biennially from 2008 to 2016, covering the Kailuan Group's employees and retirees. Thus, a large-scale prospective follow-up cohort was established on the basis of the physical examination data and the biological samples, including 101,510 participants aged 18-98 years. Based on the history of diabetes and/or fasting blood glucose ≥7.0 mmol/L and/or use of antidiabetic medications, INDEED study enrolled more than 10,000 employees to screen for DKD.