NIH All of Us Campaign Celebrates First Anniversary
As part of the rising wave of precision medicine initiatives, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) launched the All of Us campaign in 2018 (https://allofus.nih.gov/). This one-of-a-kind research program aimed to collect data from more than one million Americans, including factors about lifestyle, environment, and biology, to understand impacts on health and well being. The information would help researchers to better understand the individual nature of health to ultimately inform decisions about delivering precision medicine.
By being both individualistic and aggregate in its approach, the campaign would help scientists to find treatments and cures for diseases for entire populations, while also helping individual patients better understand their personal journey. Using NIH’s Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI), All of Us combines several traditional research techniques from larger datasets to find health breakthroughs and trends, along with commonalities among populations and demographics.
At its first anniversary, the research program is on track to hit one million participants in the next five years (https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/05/nih-says-its-1-million-person-health-study-good-start). So far, more than 200,000 people have either registered for the study or visited clinics to provide blood and urine samples. All of Us has also met its initial diversity goal with more than 50% of participants being of racial or ethnic minority.
Reaching out to all Americans, providers, patients, and populations, All of Us offers funding awards to build research cohorts across the country. Nurses, as the most trusted professionals in the county (https://news.gallup.com/poll/245597/nurses-again-outpace-professions-honesty-ethics.aspx)—and the point of contact for symptom management education and individualized care—are valued partners in the research and recruitment process. Learn more about the All of Us program and how to get involved (https://allofus.nih.gov/).