‘All of Us’ Program Partners to Diversify Cohort

Sept. 20, 2021

NIH program awards $8.7 million to seven national community partners to strengthen recruitment

The NIH’s All of Us precision medicine research program is seeking to add more participants who are typically underrepresented in biomedical research. It has awarded a total of $8.7 million to seven national community partners to strengthen recruitment.

All of Us is building a national effort that aims to build one of the largest, most diverse databases of health information from one million or more people that researchers can use to study health and disease.

“Our community engagement partners provide crucial support to help deliver on the promise of All of Us,” said Josh Denny, M.D., M.S., CEO of the program, in a statement. “Through their continued commitment to the program, they fortify our network of trusted community organizations, provide a vital sounding board to shape our activities and direction, lend their expertise to overcome communities’ distrust of research, motivate diverse communities to enroll and remain engaged with our program, and support diverse researchers doing research in All of Us.”

The partners will build networks of community organizations and engage with the program’s healthcare provider organizations and other partners to promote enrollment and recruitment. Additionally, many will engage with researchers from underrepresented groups and help advance the science of engagement.

The seven community partners that have been awarded funding are:

American Association on Health and Disability (AAHD): AAHD will establish the All of Us Disability Consortium and host a series of listening sessions.
Asian Health Coalition (AHC): AHC will work with a network of community-based organizations and national organizations and train dozens of program champions.
FiftyForward: FiftyForward will use its centers, partners, and peer ambassadors to conduct outreach and engagement activities to promote enrollment among older adults and address the digital divide.
National Alliance for Hispanic Health (NAHH): NAHH’s Todos Juntos: All of Us Research Program will conduct outreach and engagement activities to promote the enrollment of Hispanic and Latino communities.
National Baptist Convention USA Inc. (NBCUSA): NBCUSA will conduct outreach and engagement activities to promote the enrollment of African Americans through their network of more than 31,000 churches with 7.5 million members in 50 states, as well as train health ambassadors through their Health Outreach and Prevention Education (H.O.P.E.) initiative.
Stanford University: The Stanford University team will conduct outreach and engagement activities to promote the enrollment of sexual and gender minorities (SGM). They will also establish an Intersectional Advisory Group and Adolescent SGM Advisory Group to advance the priorities of the program.
Baylor College of Medicine (BCM): BCM will engage researchers from diverse backgrounds, including those from underrepresented groups, to use the All of Us data resources to advance precision medicine. Their strategies will include coordinating a faculty summit conference, an “Evenings with Genetics” series to engage prospective researchers, and small seed grants for researchers interested in exploring the program’s data analysis platform, the Researcher Workbench.

To date, more than 400,000 participants have enrolled in the program, including more than 292,000 who have completed all the initial steps of the program. Of those, about 80 percent come from communities that are historically underrepresented in research—racial and ethnic minorities, sexual and gender minorities, residents of rural areas, and other groups.