What it is
Our Future Health is a prospective UK cohort aiming to recruit 5 million adults; more than 2.5 million have enrolled and baseline phenotypic data are available for over 1.9 million participants. This paper profiles those phenotypes (self-reported behaviors, geolocation, diagnoses and medication, hospital visits, cancer registry and cause of death) and compares disease patterns against national estimates and the UK Biobank. Sociodemographic and lifestyle characteristics broadly reflected the UK population, though all but one minority ethnic group and the most deprived groups were underrepresented, and the prevalence of several conditions, particularly depression and anxiety, ran higher than national estimates while staying directionally concordant with the UK Biobank (r = 0.78).
Why it matters
Large, linked population cohorts are the substrate for discovering and validating disease prevention and treatment, and this reports the baseline phenomics of one approaching national scale, with over 1.9 million participants already phenotyped. Showing that its patterns track national estimates and replicate known clinical associations against the UK Biobank (r = 0.80) is what makes the resource usable, while the documented underrepresentation of minority and deprived groups marks where it is not yet representative.
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Filed underHealth, Environment, Cognitive Aging, Sex and Gender in Healthcare, Mental Health via Writing