In 2018, when Corewell Health was known as Spectrum Health, the hospital announced it had enrolled 1,200 individuals in the All of Us Research Program. The National Institutes of Health is seeking one million volunteers – volunteers representing diverse communities to better understand differences in those individuals’ providing data for researchers to create predictive strategies for mitigating various illnesses.
“Caucasian males are usually what’s represented in research whether that’s due to, you know again, access to care or socio-economics, geography.”
That’s Dave Chesla, Director of Research operations at Corewell Health in 2018.
Being intentional about diversity and choosing diversity to not only mean ethnicity or gender but socioeconomics, geography, urban versus rural, lifestyle, that’s very important. That’ll give us a more comprehensive picture and create a bigger platform for future research studies to really interrogate those differences.”
Today, Chesla explains the All of Us Research Program doesn’t focus on a specific health issue. Rather, it collects lifestyle information along with health data and biological samples.
Brian Lane, MD is a Corewell Health urologist and researcher. He says participants providing genetic material makes them citizen scientists. Members have access to a personal portal with all their information. Lane says its information that will assist generations to come.
