10/5/2021
ERIE, Pa. – Northwestern Pennsylvanians have a new opportunity to shape the future of medicine, thanks to the official opening today of the All of Us Pennsylvania Research Program location in Erie. The program aims to enroll 1 million participants from across the U.S. with the goal of providing more precise patient care through the development of treatments tailored for individuals.
The University of Pittsburgh and UPMC hosted the grand opening of the enrollment center this morning in the Ridgeway Professional Building at 5050 West Ridge Road. The Erie location is expected to improve the diversity of All of Us by making it easier for people in northwestern Pennsylvania, a region that is traditionally underserved by clinical trials, to participate.
“We focus on the participant as a partner in the All of Us journey, and not as a subject of this research,” said Mylynda Massart, M.D., Ph.D., co-investigator of All of Us Pennsylvania, assistant professor in Pitt’s School of Medicine and a UPMC family medicine physician. “And the more diverse these participant-partners are, the better everyone will be served because we’ll be able to shape clinical research to answer questions non-scientists have. Hopefully, this will lead to therapies for the unique needs of individuals, rather than the development of more ‘one size fits all’ treatments. Those may have worked for a carefully selected group of clinical trial participants, but don’t always serve the broader, more diverse patient population.”
The All of Us Research Program is a national program with the goal of helping researchers understand more about why people get sick or stay healthy. The goal is to enroll more than 1 million people and follow them for at least 10 years to look for patterns and learn more about what affects people’s health.
It is part of the Precision Medicine Initiative, which was launched by the federal government in 2015 to give new information and tools to people researching health.
To participate in All of Us, people answer health surveys and agree to share their electronic health records. They also provide physical measurements, such as height, weight and blood pressure, as well as give blood and urine samples.
To learn more, visit www.JoinAllofUsPA.org; call 1-800-664-2737; email allofuspa@pitt.edu, or follow @AllofUsPA on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
PHOTO INFO: (click image for high-res version)
PHOTO INFO: (click image for high-res version)
CREDIT: UPMC
CAPTION: Dr. Mylynda Massart presents on the importance of diversity in the All of Us Research Program at the recent Precision Medicine World Conference.
