Million Veteran Program: A mega-biobank to study genetic influences on health and disease

John Michael Gaziano, John Concato, Mary Brophy, Louis Fiore, Saiju Pyarajan, James Breeling, Stacey Whitbourne, Jennifer Deen, Colleen Shannon, Donald Humphries, Peter Guarino, Mihaela Aslan, Daniel Anderson, Rene Lafleur, Timothy Hammond, Kendra Schaa, Jennifer Moser, Grant Huang, Sumitra Muralidhar, Ronald PrzygodzkiTimothy J. O'Leary

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

589 Scopus citations

Abstract

Objective To describe the design and ongoing conduct of the Million Veteran Program (MVP), as an observational cohort study and mega-biobank in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health care system. Study Design and Setting Data are being collected from participants using questionnaires, the VA electronic health record, and a blood sample for genomic and other testing. Several ongoing projects are linked to MVP, both as peer-reviewed research studies and as activities to help develop an infrastructure for future, broad-based research uses. Results Formal planning for MVP commenced in 2009; the protocol was approved in 2010, and enrollment began in 2011. As of August 3, 2015, and with a steady state of ≈50 recruiting sites nationwide, N = 397,104 veterans have been enrolled. Among N = 199,348 with currently available genotyping data, most participants (as expected) are male (92.0%) between the ages of 50 and 69 years (55.0%). On the basis of self-reported race, white (77.2%) and African American (13.5%) populations are well represented. Conclusions By helping to promote the future integration of genetic testing in health care delivery, including clinical decision making, the MVP is designed to contribute to the development of precision medicine.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)214-223
Number of pages10
JournalJournal of Clinical Epidemiology
Volume70
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Feb 2016
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Cohort studies
  • Exome sequencing
  • Genomics
  • Genotyping
  • Veterans
  • Whole-genome sequencing

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