The All of Us Research Program has awarded a total of $8.7 million to seven national community organizations to strengthen recruitment of participants and researchers underrepresented in biomedical research.
All of Us is 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. With this new funding, partners will collaborate with other program awardees and divisions to involve underrepresented communities using engagement, outreach, enrollment, and retention strategies and tactics.
As part of the new award, the partners will build networks of community organizations and engage with the program’s health care 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 and projects that have been awarded funding include:
· American Association on Health and Disability (AAHD), which will establish the All of Us Disability Consortium and host a series of listening sessions.
· Asian Health Coalition (AHC), which will work with a network of community-based organizations and national organizations and train dozens of program champions.
· FiftyForward, which will utilize 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), which will conduct engagement and outreach activities to promote the enrollment of Hispanic and Latino communities in NAHH’s Todos Juntos.
· National Baptist Convention USA (NBCUSA), which 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.
· A team at Stanford University, which 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), which will engage researchers from diverse backgrounds, including those from underrepresented groups, to utilize the All of Us data resources to advance precision medicine. Baylor’s 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.
