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.
Keywords
Genomics
Cohort studies
Genotyping
Exome sequencing
Whole-genome sequencing
Veterans
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Conflict of interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest related to this work, supported by the US Government.
Funding: The research was funded by the Office of Research and Development, Department of Veterans Affairs.
