All of Us (initiative)

Lore & Background

The All of Us Research Program was created in 2015 under the Obama Administration with $130 million in funding. It was announced by President Obama on January 30, 2015, as part of the Precision Medicine Initiative, and is run by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The program is bilingual, with information and materials available in Spanish and English. Eligible adults (18 and over) can enroll, while people in prison or those who cannot consent on their own are not eligible. Children may also be able to enroll. Participation is voluntary and does not affect a participant's medical care; if a participant quits, their samples will be destroyed.

Reader's Guide

The All of Us Research Program is significant for its ambitious goal of enrolling one million participants to create a diverse genetic and health database for precision medicine. By June 2020, enrollment reached approximately 350,000 individuals, with about 80% from groups traditionally underrepresented in biomedical research. The program has faced criticism, notably from Professor Kenneth Weiss in 2017, who suggested the funding could be better spent elsewhere, and from Joseph Yracheta, a researcher and skeptic of the initiative's benefit to Native American tribes. Despite this, the program has continued to expand, launching the All of Us Researcher Workbench in May 2020 for beta testing, and responding to the COVID-19 pandemic by testing blood samples for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies and adding monthly participant surveys on pandemic impacts. Its legacy lies in its potential to enable individualized prevention, treatment, and care through large-scale data collection and analysis.

Did You Know?

• The program was originally named the Precision Medicine Initiative Cohort Program before being renamed 'All of Us' in October 2016.
• As of May 2019, one year after its national launch, All of Us had enrolled 230,000 participants, almost one quarter of its goal of one million.
• About 77% of beta phase participants came from underrepresented groups, including communities of color and individuals with lower incomes; the beta phase enrolled roughly 25,000 participants.
• The program's budget increased every year from FY2016 ($130 million) to FY2018 ($290 million).

Origins & the Precision Medicine Vision

The All of Us Research Program traces its roots to the 2015 State of the Union Address, where the Obama Administration unveiled a precision medicine initiative backed by $130 million in initial funding. Operated by the National Institutes of Health, the effort was originally called the Precision Medicine Initiative Cohort Program before being rebranded simply as "All of Us" in October 2016. Its central ambition was to gather genetic and health data from one million volunteers to accelerate medical breakthroughs and enable individualized prevention, treatment, and care. The budget grew steadily in the years that followed, reaching $230 million in FY2017 and $290 million in FY2018, signaling sustained institutional commitment. The program was designed to be bilingual, offering all materials in both English and Spanish, and was structured so that eligible adults aged 18 and over could participate voluntarily without any impact on their existing medical care.

Enrollment & the Diversity Imperative

A defining feature of All of Us is its explicit commitment to enrolling populations historically excluded from biomedical research. By the one-year anniversary in summer 2019, the program had recruited 230,000 participants, with approximately 80 percent coming from communities of color and individuals with lower incomes. The NIH reported as early as May 2018 that up to three-quarters of beta-phase participants belonged to those underrepresented groups. Enrollment continued climbing, reaching roughly 350,000 by June 2020, and eventually settling at around 297,549 participants. Eligibility was broad: any adult 18 or older could join, though incarcerated individuals and those unable to give informed consent were excluded. A 2018 consent form made clear that participation was entirely voluntary and that withdrawing would result in the destruction of one's samples. Children were also noted as potentially eligible. National enrollment officially opened on May 6, 2018, after an initial pilot had already gathered about 10,000 participants by January of that year.

Research Ecosystem & Scientific Output

Behind the scenes, All of Us has assembled a substantial research infrastructure. More than 100 partners contribute to implementing and supporting the program's mission, including Verily Life Sciences, the Google-backed life sciences startup whose stated goal is transforming how disease is detected, prevented, and managed. A 2019 review highlighted that the initiative involves the public at every stage of the research process. The data collected is analyzed by approximately 2,300 researchers. On May 27, 2020, the program launched its All of Us Researcher Workbench for beta testing, making electronic health records and survey responses from the first 225,000 participants available to approved researchers who hold an NIH eRA Commons account and are affiliated with institutions that have signed a data use agreement. Scientific output has followed: a 2024 Nature paper linked electronic health records to genomics data using a uniform manifold approximation and projection algorithm, and a 2025 Nature Communications article presented principal components analysis projections of the biobank's genetic diversity.

Criticism & Questions of Benefit

Not everyone has embraced the program uncritically. In 2017, Professor Kenneth Weiss of Pennsylvania State University published a skeptical review arguing that the funding could be better allocated elsewhere. More pointedly, Joseph M. Yracheta, a researcher specializing in health disparities and a member of the Pūrepecha Indigenous group, has voiced doubts about whether All of Us genuinely benefits Native American tribes. As co-founder and executive director of the Native BioData Consortium, a biobank containing samples from indigenous people and led by indigenous scientists, Yracheta has collected genetic samples from members of a Native American tribe in the Northern Plains. His skepticism centers on the question of who controls and benefits from indigenous genetic data, suggesting that a top-down federal program may not address the specific needs or sovereignty concerns of tribal communities. These critiques underscore ongoing tensions in precision medicine between broad data collection and the meaningful, equitable inclusion of the populations it claims to serve.

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