Our Future Health’s database is open to researchers who conduct health research for the public good.
Our Future Health is an ambitious collaboration between the public, charity and private sectors to build the UK’s largest health research programme – bringing people together to develop new ways to prevent, detect and treat disease.
Our Future Health has recruited more than 2 million consented participants, and has bio-banked blood samples from over a million. Data currently available to researchers include baseline health questionnaires from 1,414,260 participants; genotype array data from 651,050 participants; 1,151,453 participants with linked health record data; and 1,025,498 participants with clinic measurements (anthropometry, lipids and blood pressure).
The aim is to recruit up to 5 million participants reflective of the UK adult population to create a unique resource that will catalyse research for both common and rare diseases – how they develop, how clinicians can intervene, and how patients can be treated.
Access to biological samples in this large prospective cohort will facilitate translational discoveries by enabling deep phenotyping of selected populations. The Our Future Health research programme will also enable selection of participants based on geography, demographics, genetics, phenotype, and disease risk, to be invited to consent to additional research studies and trials.
David Hunter, founding Chief Science Adviser of Our Future Health, and Richard Doll Professor of Epidemiology and Medicine at Oxford Population Health, said ‘Our Future Health builds on the success of UK Biobank and complements the wider genetic and disease research infrastructure of the UK; the first version of the protocol was based on the UK Biobank protocol, and we were inspired by the ability of large cohort studies to transform human health. We have also benefitted from the involvement of many people connected with Oxford Population Health who have contributed scientific, management, and ethics expertise.’
Melinda Mills, member of the Our Future Health Scientific Advisory Board, ambassador to the research community, Professor of Demography and Population Health at Oxford Population Health, and Director of the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science added ‘Our Future Health is an amazing resource which will help us to deliver our collective ambition of helping everyone live longer and healthier lives. Every adult over 18 living in the UK is eligible to join, so please do consider participating. If you are a researcher, I encourage you to investigate this new resource.’
Dr Raghib Ali, Chief Executive and Chief Investigator of Our Future Health, said ‘Healthcare systems across the world are facing an increasing burden of chronic diseases due to ageing populations with most conditions currently only being detected at an advanced stage when they are much more difficult to treat effectively. Our Future Health has a very large, diverse cohort which can help address these public health challenges and we’re delighted to be making excellent progress, with researchers already utilising this important resource.’
Our Future Health is committed to the highest standards, policies and processes that protect participants’ confidentiality, whilst maximising the opportunity to help researchers to tackle serious diseases. Volunteers’ data are de-identified and held securely in trusted research environments that meet strict security criteria. Our Future Health data and samples are only available to registered researchers conducting health research for the public good and are strictly controlled through an access process.
For more details and to make an application to the Our Future Health independent Access Board, visit the research section of the Our Future Health website. Find out more about the resource in Nature Medicine.
This news story was originally published by Oxford Population Health