14 Jun Nationwide research program in search of 100k Wisconsin residents from all backgrounds

Health records released to All of Us Program will inform scientific research

By Eliabeth Dohms, Wisconsin Public Radio

A health care project with a goal of speeding up health research is in search of 100,000 volunteers in Wisconsin.

The state effort is part of a larger campaign, All Of Us, that is hoping to enroll 1 million people across the country who will provide access to their electronic health records and other data that will populate a bank of health information.

Funded by the National Institutes of Health, the program has partnered with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Marshfield Clinic and the Medical College of Wisconsin to recruit Wisconsin volunteers of diverse backgrounds.

Scientists have a specific goal for the data collected, explained Dorothy Farrar-Edwards, a principal investigator for the All of Us-Wisconsin. That’s to look for patterns in DNA in search of medical breakthroughs.

It’s a launching point into a specific area of care called precision medicine where prevention, diagnoses and treatments are tailored to a person’s genetic characteristics.

“In order to be able to do that more effectively, we need a lot of data from a lot of people in order to drive this process forward,” Farrar-Edwards said.

Researchers know there are genetic components to many types of chronic diseases, she said. For example, African Americans are at a significantly greater risk than Caucasians for developing Alzheimer’s disease. This research could help point to why, she said. Read more …

This story is a recap of the “All of Us” at UW-Madison program’s appearance on WPR’s “The Larry Meiller Show”. You can listen to that interview in its entirety here.