Newswise — The All of Us Research Program, which aims to accelerate the prevention and treatment of illness through precision medicine with the help of one million or more research participants from across the United States, officially opens for national enrollment on Sunday, May 6.
Launch events will be held nationwide on Sunday, May 6, to raise awareness and encourage enrollment in the program. Nashville’s event will be held from 2 to 5 p.m. at 301 Madison Street -- the Madison Station location of FiftyForward, an advocacy and social services organization for people age 50 and over.
Co-sponsored by FifityForward and Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), the event will include a community education fair, music, food trucks and speakers. For more information, visit https://launch.joinallofus.org/location/nashville.
All of Us, a major component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Precision Medicine Initiative, is harnessing recent scientific and technological advances to enable individuals, in partnership with researchers and health care providers, to accelerate health research and medical breakthroughs. The goal is individualized prevention, treatment and care for everyone.
“We can improve the health of all of us by studying all of us,” explained Joshua C. Denny, MD, MS, VUMC’s Vice President for Personalized Medicine and director of the All of UsData and Research Center. “We need all races, ages, ethnicities, health statuses ... The scale is huge.”
People ages 18 and older can join All of Us by logging onto https://www.joinallofus.org. They will be asked to provide health and lifestyle information through online surveys. They also can grant access to their electronic health records although they can still participate in the program without sharing this information.
Some participants will be asked to provide blood and urine samples and have basic physical measurements taken, such as height and weight. The collected data will be available to researchers to support thousands of studies across a wide range of health topics.
Privacy and security are high priorities for the program. Personal information that can easily identify participants will be removed from all data. DNA and other biological samples will be stored in a secure biobank.
The May 6 launch in Nashville will begin with a community educational fair featuring a variety of opportunities for people to improve their health and wellbeing.
The launch event begins at 2 p.m. with speakers including Nashville Mayor David Briley followed by U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tennessee. At 3 p.m., a simulcast from Washington, D.C., will feature NIH Director Francis Collins, MD, PhD, All of Us Director Eric Dishman and Dara Richardson-Heron, MD, the program’s chief engagement officer.
Additional local speakers will include: Dr. Denny, Tennessee Rep. Brenda Gilmore, D-Nashville, FiftyForward Executive Director Janet Jernigan, Angela L. Shine, LMSW, National Mental Health/A Better Way Coordinator, Metro Councilwoman Nancy VanReece and Michael Minor, EdD, director of Health Outreach and Prevention Education, National Baptist Convention.
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