Large Scale Health Data Initiatives

UK Biobank (link) is a national and international health resource (link). Its aim is to improve the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of a wide range of serious and life-threatening illnesses including cancer, heart diseases, stroke, diabetes, arthritis, osteoporosis, eye disorders, depression and forms of dementia. It follows the health and well being of 500,000+ volunteer participants and provides health information, which does not identify them, to approved researchers in the UK and overseas, from academia and industry.

Biobanks (Fig 1.) are large scale initiatives following a populations health over time. By collecting blood, saliva, urine and combining the omics data with health records the aim is to study causes of chronic disease and use this for health treatments. UKBioBank has cost the public over £300 million with comparable costs for the creation of other countries large scale health data initiatives such as $180 million for BioBank Japan or $700 million for the Military Veteran Programme in the US.

Data Initiative	Country	Initiative Goal	Samples / Data Collected	Participants
UK Biobank	UK	Improve prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease	Blood, urine, saliva, DNA, imaging, metabolomics, proteomics, EHR	500,000+ residents; ~20 million samples, 2 samples / patient / year
OpenSAFELY	UK	Secure, large-scale analysis of NHS patient records	EHRs: diagnoses, prescriptions, clinical lab results, vitals	58 million+ NHS patients
Our Future Health	UK	Prevent, detect, and treat diseases earlier	Blood (plasma, serum, buffy coat), DNA, lifestyle data, EHRs	Target: 5 million UK adults (1M+ enrolled)
China Kadoorie Biobank	China	Study genetic and environmental causes of chronic diseases	Blood (plasma, buffy coat), DNA, biochemistry, metabolomics, proteomics	512,000+ residents
CARTaGENE	Canada	Population biobank for precision health research	Blood, urine, DNA, genotyping, bone density, lifestyle and health data	43,000+ residents in Québec
CanPath	Canada	National platform for chronic disease and population health research	Blood, saliva, urine, physical measurements, EHRs	330,000+ participants
FinnGen	Finland	Integrate genetic data with national health records	Blood (DNA), genotyping, WGS, EHRs, planned proteomics and metabolomics	500,000+ residents
All of Us	United States	Enable precision medicine and health equity	Blood, urine, saliva, EHRs, genomics (WGS, genotyping), surveys, wearables	Target: 1 million; 414,000+ with WGS as of 2025
Million Veteran Program (MVP)	United States	Study genetics and health in veterans	Blood, genotyping, WGS, EHRs, surveys	900,000+ veterans enrolled
BioBank Japan	Japan	Genomic and biomarker research for common diseases	Blood, genotyping, proteomics, metabolomics (46k serum metabolome), EHRs	200,000+ disease-specific patients
Taiwan Biobank	Taiwan	Population health and genetic diversity research	Blood, urine, saliva, DNA, genotyping, surveys, imaging	200,000+ enrolled; goal 300,000+
Korean Genome and Epidemiology Study (KoGES)	South Korea	Genomic epidemiology of chronic diseases	Blood, urine, DNA, genotyping, metabolomics, surveys	~200,000 participants across cohorts
Estonian Biobank	Estonia	Genomic and health data integration for national precision medicine	Blood, genotyping, WGS, clinical and registry data	~210,000 participants (~20% of Estonia’s population)
Lifelines Biobank	Netherlands	Three-generation cohort for health and disease research	Blood, urine, feces, saliva, DNA, metabolomics, microbiome, EHRs	~167,000 participants
Generation Scotland	Scotland (UK)	Family-based genetic and health research	Blood, DNA, physical and mental health records	24,000 (GenScot 1); expanding to >20,000 more

Fig 1. List of current international biobanks. EHR (England Health Records)

This research infrastructure has allowed over 18,000 peer review papers and hundreds of research projects. They generate discovery science, make drug target selection more evidence based, enable faster public health analytics and create long lived national infrastructure that can be reused for decades.