While many programs share one or two characteristics of All of Us, it is the combination of all the elements below that makes All of Us a unique and unprecedented research effort:
o Our participants reflect the rich diversity of America, including volunteers of many races and ethnicities, age groups, geographic regions, gender identities, sexual orientations, and health statuses. We aim to enroll one million or more participants over the course of the program.
o With All of Us, participants are true partners—not subjects, with ongoing opportunities to help shape the program with their input. Further, data will be shared with both researchers and participants.
o As a government-funded program committed to open data and science, All of Us will make data broadly accessible to researchers of all kinds, including citizen scientists, to support thousands of studies across a wide range of different health topics.
o Other large research programs collect limited types of samples or data, often focused on a specific disease. All of Us gathers blood, urine, and saliva samples; physical measurements; electronic health records; survey information about participants’ health histories, family medical histories, lifestyles, and communities; and wearable data to get a more complete picture of human health across many conditions.
What makes this program different from other research programs, cohorts, or biobanks?