Multiple sclerosis in the All of Us Research Program: Prevalence and associated demographic and geographic...

Multiple sclerosis is a chronic disease with a great burden not only in healthcare costs but to a person's quality of life. The All of Us Research Program's large, diverse and broadly accessible data resource could be extremely useful to multiple sclerosis researchers, allowing them to consider individual differences in lifestyle, socioeconomic factors, environmental, genetic and other biological characteristics to advance precision prevention, diagnosis and treatment. The objective of this analysis was to demonstrate the richness of the All of Us data in prevalence, demographic and geographic distribution of participants reporting a history of multiple sclerosis either by electronic health record data, survey data or both. The prevalence of multiple sclerosis within the All of Us population was higher than most previous reports, overall and within demographic and geographic categories. Differences were also seen in prevalence by the type of data provided, with lowest prevalence in those who had both medical record and self-reported multiple sclerosis. These findings, along with the diversity of data types available in this cohort, may make it an ideal place for MS researchers to conduct studies, particularly etiologic and translational research. The ability to link participant reported survey data with electronic health record data, genetic and biospecimen data could allow for new studies that could not only improve our understanding of the disease, but present opportunities to develop personalized multiple sclerosis preventive interventions and treatments in the future.