Key Dates

Related Announcements

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Issued by

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

All of Us Research Program, Office of the Director, National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Purpose

The National Institutes of Health is issuing this Notice to alert the community about an upcoming Research Opportunity Announcement (ROA) from the All of Us Research Program, a historic effort to gather data from more than 1 million people who reflect the diversity of the United States and its territories, with the goal of accelerating health research and medical breakthroughs, and enabling individualized prevention, treatment, and care. The purpose of the upcoming ROA is to solicit proposals from potential partners to support communications, marketing, and user experience activities for the All of Us Research Program, which are central to the vast majority of program goals, initiatives, and partners.

The ROA is expected to be published in February 2025, and will be available via www.sam.gov. NIH acceptance of proposals will depend on the timeframe outlined in the published opportunity announcement. The goal is to make a single award by September 2025. The anticipated award will be made pursuant to the Other Transactions Authority (OTA) granted to the NIH Director under the 21st Century Cures Act, as specified in Section 402(n) of the Public Health Service Act, 42 U.S.C. 282(n).

This Notice is being provided in advance of the release of the ROA.

This Notice does not commit the Government to award an agreement. This Notice is for informational purposes only. It is not a formal ROA, Notice of Funding Opportunity, or Request for Application. Do not submit any formal proposals or applications to this Notice. All information contained in this Notice is subject to change at any time.

Research Initiative Details:

All of Us Research Program

The NIH All of Us Research Program is a historic effort to recruit and gather data from 1 million

or more participants with the goal of accelerating health research and medical breakthroughs,

and enabling individualized prevention, treatment, and care. The program is guided by a set of core values. Participants should reflect the diversity of the United States and are invited to consent and provide a full set of data, including completion of several surveys, sharing their electronic health records and data from wearable devices, and providing physical measurements and biosamples. Participant data is curated, de-identified, and made available to registered researchers to conduct any number of studies.

The program launched national enrollment in May 2018 and has grown exponentially in scale

and complexity since then. It has moved beyond building the basic participant infrastructure to

now offering an open and secure dataset for researchers. As of January of 2025, more than 849,000 adults have consented to join the program and more than 574,000 have completed all initial steps of the program.

More than 80% of participants are from groups historically underrepresented in biomedical research, and 45% identify with a racial and ethnic minority group. As of January 2025, more than 14,700 researchers from diverse backgrounds are already using the All of Us dataset to study a wide variety of health conditions and to learn more about how individual differences in lifestyle, environment, and biological makeup can influence health and disease.

The All of Us Research Program characterizes populations that are underrepresented in biomedical research (UBR) as groups that historically have low participation rates in biomedical research studies (including clinical trials). UBR groups include (1) self-identified individuals from racial and ethnic minority groups and/or (2) sexual and gender minority groups; (3) adults 65 years of age and above; and people with (4) disabilities, (5) barriers to accessing healthcare, (6) lower incomes, or (7) limited educational attainment; and/or (8) residents of rural areas.

The NIH All of Us Research Program provides strategic vision and serves as the coordinating center for a consortium of approximately 100 funded and non-funded partner organizations around the country that work collaboratively to implement the program:

• Health care provider organizations (HPOs) are responsible for local outreach, recruitment, enrollment, and retention.
• The Participant Center (TPC) and its partners are responsible for developing and implementing activities to recruit, enroll, and retain participants who are not associated with HPOs, and to pilot novel ways to enhance the participant experience that may be implemented across the Program.
• Community engagement partners are responsible for additional outreach, education, engagement, and enrollment activities targeted to their diverse communities.
• The Participant and Partner Services Center (PPSC) provides technology systems and both direct and indirect research services to enable and support participant engagement, enrollment, and retention in collaboration with program partners.
• The Center for Linkage and Acquisition of Data (CLAD) securely acquires, processes, and links new types of information to All of Us program participant data.
• The Data and Research Center (DRC) is responsible for securely housing and providing

controlled access to the data.

• The Biobank is responsible for shipping and storage of participant biosamples.
• The Genome Center generates and analyzes genomic data from participant biosamples.

See the All of Us Research Program’s protocol for additional information.

Goal:

Provide communications, marketing, and user experience (UX) to the All of Us Research Program coordinating center, and for health care provider organizations and community engagement partners.

This effort is designed to fund communications and marketing partners who will develop strategies and tactics to:

• raise awareness and understanding of the program,
• drive participant enrollment,
• regularly engage with existing participants,
• encourage the research community to use the data being gathered,
• share the results of research widely,
• keep the public and research community informed of key events, milestones, and activities, and
• evaluate the effectiveness of communications activities.

The effort will also entail UX work including defining the user experience (participants, researchers, frontline staff, and other key stakeholders); designing and conducting ongoing research to assess user needs; maintaining and updating the program’s repository of market/audience/operations research; defining top user problems and making recommendations to address them; and providing technical assistance to consortium partners managing key systems to enhance user interfaces and optimize user experiences.

ROA Summary

The Communications, Marketing, and User Experience (UX) for the All of Us Research Program ROA will outline six milestones as described below. Proposers may propose partnerships within their proposal to meet the goals and provide expertise across all milestones.

The anticipated maximum award period is 5 years. NIH may commit up to $5 million in FY 2025 to fund one award with initial Year 1 funding. Current and future year amounts will depend on annual appropriations.

The ROA will be open to Higher Education Institutions (public and private), Non-profit Organizations, and For-profit Organizations (including small and other than small businesses).

Milestones

Milestone 1. Communications, public relations, and marketing strategies to support the national program

This strategy must address how participants will be engaged and have an active and authentic

voice in the evolution of the program while also engaging a diverse research community keen to use the data. The strategy must also address the types of messages needed and how they will be tailored to reach different populations (especially those historically underrepresented in

biomedical research), and communications channels and products to be employed.

Milestone 2. Integrated communications and marketing strategies within regions or demographic segments

This milestone requires development and implementation of locally relevant and integrated communication and marketing strategies that are tailored to individuals who have been underrepresented in biomedical research. Requirements include establishing communication efforts that use innovative and robust strategies to effectively reach diverse populations in different geographic regions. This requirement includes reaching and engaging children and families across age and demographic spectrums.

Milestone 3. Consortium-wide communications support

This milestone requires novel and flexible approaches to provide comprehensive and timely training, technical assistance, and customer service to our health care provider organizations and community engagement partners to ensure they are well-equipped to deliver local communications to perform outreach and recruit, enroll, and retain participants. This will include a robust asset development and review process (assets may include digital and printable materials such as brochures, posters, flyers, slide decks, social media toolkits, videos, among others), and enhanced self-service tools such as a copy repository and digital asset management system.

Milestone 4. Communications to existing participants

This requirement includes development of methods to continue to engage participants once they are introduced to the All of Us Research Program. This requires maintaining their interest as they begin the enrollment process and engage in ongoing data donation opportunities and sharing with them the findings from research made possible by the generous donation of their information.

Milestone 5. Communications to the research community

This milestone requires ensuring that the research community is aware of and using All of Us data and tools. This includes developing an approach for communicating with researchers of all backgrounds and career stages about the value of the All of Us dataset.

Milestone 6. User Experience

This milestone is designed to define, assess, and continuously improve the All of Us user experience, foster trust, and ensure that users find value in their participation with the program. The milestone includes key stakeholder (participants, researchers, frontline staff) interactions with the program and its many entry points (both digital and in-person).

Proposals are not being solicited at this time.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

Please direct all inquiries to: All of Us Research Program

Subject: Communications, Marketing, and User Experience (UX) for the All of Us Research Program (NOT-PM-25-002)

Email: aoucommunications@od.nih.gov