All of Us Research Project: An American Dataset for Improving Research Equity

The All of Us Research Project is a National Institute of Health (NIH) initiative with the intent to build a robust dataset of at least one million participants with a focus on social, economic, racial, and age diversity. The mission of All of Us is to ensure that researchers can access data on groups which have been harmed or underrepresented by medical research.

The program collects a variety of data on consenting participants including:
– Genome Sequences
– FitBit/Wearable Fitness Tracker Data
– Social Determinant Surveys (surveys containing questions relating to socioeconomic status, rural/urban living, access to healthcare etc.)
– COVID-19 Vaccination status
– COVID-19 Pandemic Experience Surveys (how were you personally affected by the pandemic)
– Electronic Health Data

All data collected is done on a consent basis for each collection period. Participants are not required to turn over any data which they are not comfortable having collected. If you would like to sign up to be a participant you can do so here.

The program makes this data available to researchers through a state-of-the-art cloud analysis platform which supports analysis through SAS, Python, and R Studio. To access the researcher tools you must be associated with a organization that has a Data Usage Agreement (University of Kentucky has a DURA which allows you to access the data given appropriate training). Additionally, if you would like to explore a database showing specific categories of data collected, you can do so using the All of Us Data Browser.

University of Kentucky has a local support team available to UK staff and students wishing to use the dataset and its related analysis tools. To learn more about the program at UK you can visit our website here. If you are affiliated with the University of Kentucky and would like to get started using the tools available, you can attend weekly office hours. If you cannot make office hours, you can contact Noah Perry.