Opinion: I handed over my genetic data to the NIH. Here’s why you should, too

The National Institutes of Health recently launched the All of Us Research Program to create one of the largest, richest public resources for biomedical research in human history. Its mission is to accelerate medical breakthroughs that personalize prevention, treatment, and care for all Americans. As the director of this unprecedented program — and as a cancer survivor, patient advocate, and participant in more than a dozen research studies — I want to share how we are safeguarding participant confidentiality and personal data.

Long before this program began, the NIH conducted focus groups, , and set up listening sessions with people about their hopes, ideas, and concerns about collecting detailed and sensitive health information over their lifetimes. We made certain to meet with . These communities have good reason to be suspicious of research because of past breaches of trust perpetrated by government programs — from the Tuskegee syphilis study to the Havasupai genetic study. With their help and input from top privacy, security, and ethics experts, we created clear and principles for All of Us and included these .