Key Dates

Related Announcements

None

Issued by

Office of The Director, National Institutes of Health (OD)

All of Us Research Program (All of Us)

Purpose

This Notice provides information about the All of Us Research Program and how analyzing its data provides opportunities for developing and enhancing research, training, and career development programs when responding to NIH Parent Announcements and Institute and Center (IC) Notice of Funding Opportunities (NOFOs).

Program Information

The All of Us Research Program is a historic effort to collect data from one million or more people living in the United States and its territories to accelerate health research and medical breakthroughs. Built in partnership with participants spanning different ages, races and ethnicities, and regions of the country, the All of Us dataset provides unprecedented opportunities for a wide range of studies to understand how biological, behavioral, and environmental factors influence health and a broad range of diseases and conditions.

As the one of the largest, most diverse, and well-curated data sets in the U.S., the All of Us Research Program is a world-class scientific resource that provides the data, tools, and cloud-based analysis infrastructure that enables diverse trainees and researchers at all career levels and multiple institutional types to investigate complex, multidimensional, and intersecting influences on human health. The Researcher Workbench provides the opportunity to gain practical experience in advanced research and big data science, work with leading scientists, collaborate on team projects in shared spaces, support training and education, catalyze capacity building, facilitate knowledge mobilization, and generate findings for future grant support.  

The All of Us Research Program’s Researcher Workbench provides access to expansive data from diverse populations, especially populations that are underrepresented in biomedical research (UBR). Populations underrepresented in biomedical research include (1) racial and ethnic minority groups, (2) sexual and gender minority groups; (3) children and older adults; and people with (4) disabilities, (5) barriers to accessing health care, (6) lower incomes, (7) limited educational attainment; and/or (8) people residing in geographically rural areas. 

As such, its use to analyze data could prove relevant and effective in developing and expanding research, training, and career development programs in response to Parent Announcements and to Institute and Center (IC) issued Notices of Funding Opportunities. For example, the Researcher Workbench enables studies that are not feasible or easily done in other cohorts, due to a combination of its size, its diverse population that’s historically been underrepresented, and the scope of its data; accelerates research discoveries, by having “analysis-ready” data (saves time recruiting and characterizing) and by being able to combine data from other studies to increase sample size or replicate results; and accelerates training, by providing a shovel ready opportunity for trainees to immediately design and perform analyses.

One example of the value offered by the All of Us Research Program is a commentary in Nature Medicine by NIH Institutes and Center directors that emphasizes the power of the dataset and invites the research community to explore and analyze the data to drive discoveries. 

The data are refreshed based on All of Us’ data release schedule. The adult data currently available to registered trainees and researchers include:

• data from 413,450+ participants [about 45% self-identify with a racial or ethnic minority, 75% from communities underrepresented in biomedical research overall (Including racial and ethnic minorities, sexual and gender minorities, people living in rural areas, and other groups)].
• whole genome sequence data from nearly 245,350+ participants (nearly 50% of whom self-identify as a member of a racial or ethnic minority group).
  • 593,000,000+ unique variants, which Include 100M+ variants with ? 3 occurrences not seen in gnomAD 3.0 (n = 71,702)
• electronic health record data from 287,000+ participants (including demographics, visits, diagnoses, COVID diagnoses and medications)
• survey data from 413,350+ participants from seven different questionnaires capturing participant data on lifestyle, health care utilization and access, and COVID-19 participant experience.
• Fitbit data from more than 15,600+ participants who linked their personal data to their All of Us account 
• physical measurements from 337,500+ participants (including blood pressure, heart rate, BMI, and more) 

The All of Us data are housed on the Researcher Workbench, which also includes tools, along with personalized support resources, such as an integrated help desk, regular office hours, sample datasets and more. Steps for creating an account, including having a Data Use and Registration Agreement in place, are provided at https://www.researchallofus.org/apply/. Once registered, researchers can create research projects using collaborative workspaces, cohort-building tools, interactive notebooks, and more. Additional training is required to access the controlled tier, which includes more granular data on participants as well as whole genome sequence and genotyping data, as described above. The All of Us Research Hub (https://www.researchallofus.org/) and its Support Hub (https://support.researchallofus.org/hc/en-us) are good places to start to learn more about data access and use, as well and to explore research currently underway. 

As noted above, analyzing the program’s data can be relevant to both NIH Parent Announcements and IC NOFOs. Some, but not all, active IC NOFOs when this Notice of Information was posted are listed at this link. This list does not include all possibilities or future IC NOFOs.

Inquiries

Please direct inquiries about specific IC NOFOs and Parent Announcements to the IC program contacts.

Please direct inquiries about All of Us Research Program to
Sheri Schully, Ph.D.
All of Us Research Program
Telephone: 240-827-1691
Email: schullys@mail.nih.gov