National Hispanic Medical Association partners with the All of Us Research Program to advance precision medicine

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WASHINGTON, May 7, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On May 6, the National Institutes of Health will open national enrollment for the All of Us Research Program—a momentous effort to advance individualized prevention, treatment and care for people of all backgrounds—in collaboration with National Hispanic Medical Association (NHMA) and other partners. People ages 18 and older, regardless of health status, will be eligible to enroll. The official launch date will be marked by community events in cities across the country as well as an online event. The overall aim is to enroll 1 million or more volunteers and oversample communities that have been underrepresented in research to make the program the largest, most diverse resource of its kind.

"The time is now to transform how we conduct research—with participants as partners—to shed new light on how to stay healthy and manage disease in more personalized ways. This is what we can accomplish through All of Us," said NIH Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.

Precision medicine is an emerging approach to disease treatment and prevention that considers differences in people's lifestyles, environments and biological makeup, including genes. By partnering with 1 million diverse people who share information about themselves over many years, the All of Us Research Program will enable research to more precisely prevent and treat a variety of health conditions.

"Given that by 2042, one out of four people living in our nation will be Latino, NHMA has joined as a partner to encourage the Latino community to join the All of Us Research Program,"  said NHMA president and CEO Elena Rios, MD, MSPH, FACP. "Their participation will provide information on how to better develop health care prevention and treatment programs for generations to come."

All of Us seeks to transform the relationship between researchers and participants, bringing them together as partners to inform the program's directions, goals and responsible return of research information. Participants will be able to access their own health information, summary data about the entire participant community and information about studies and findings that come from All of Us.  

Participants are asked to share different types of health and lifestyle information, through online surveys and electronic health records (EHRs), which will continue to be collected over the course of the program. At different times over the coming months and years, some participants will be asked to visit a local partner site to provide blood and urine samples and to have basic physical measurements taken, such as height and weight, to ensure that the program gathers information from all types of people. This program is especially focused on those who have been underrepresented in research, but not everyone will be asked to give physical measures and samples. In the future, participants may be invited to share data through wearable devices and to join follow-up research studies, including clinical trials.

Also, in future phases of the program, children will be able to enroll, and the program will add more data types, such as genetic data. In addition, data from the program will be broadly accessible for research purposes. Ultimately, the All of Us Research program will be a rich and open data resource for traditional academic researchers as well as citizen scientists—and everyone in between.

People also may take part in social media activities (#JoinAllofUs) or tune in on May 6 at https://Launch.JoinAllofUs.org to watch speakers across the country talk about precision medicine and the power of volunteering for research.

To learn more about the program and how to join, please visit https://www.JoinAllofUs.org.

"All of Us" is a registered service mark of the U.S. Department of Health & Services (HHS).

NHMA is a nonprofit association representing the interests of 50,000 Hispanic physicians with the mission to improve the health of Hispanics in the U.S.  For more information, please visit www.NHMAmd.org

SOURCE National Hispanic Medical Association

Related Links

http://www.NHMAmd.org