Leveraging the All of Us Research Program to Advance Women’s Health: Addressing Conditions that Affect Women Differently,Disproportionately,and Uniquely

Abstract

Background:

Despite significant medical and scientific advances, gaps remain in women’s health research across the lifespan. We explore the use of the All of Us Research Program Data set to help close the research gaps for women.

Methods:

This paper describes the utility of the All of Us Research Program—a large, longitudinal U.S. cohort of over 800,000 individuals (63% women) representing all 50 states—to advance research in women’s health. Three use cases explore conditions that affect women: (1) disproportionality (hyperthyroidism and osteoporosis), (2) differently (health care access), and (3) uniquely (postpartum hemorrhage). Each use case utilized electronic health records, survey responses, and clinical measurements, and was analyzed with R on the secure cloud-based workbench.

Results:

Hyperthyroidism was strongly associated with the development of osteoporosis, suggesting opportunities for additional screening and treatment. Examining access to care, women described barriers including cost, transportation, and caregiving responsibilities. In postpartum hemorrhage of the over 10,000 pregnancies we analyzed, the multivariable linear regression showed that anemia, preeclampsia, obesity, placental abruption, and placenta previa were all significant risk factors. These use cases demonstrate the size and depth of the data and the usefulness for testing hypotheses and identifying areas for screening and prevention for women’s health.

Conclusions:

All of Us enables comprehensive, inclusive research into sex-specific health issues. Our analyses show how this dataset fills long-standing gaps by supporting stratified analyses enabling research into women’s health across the lifespan. Researchers can readily access these tools to accelerate science and medical advances for women.