More than one in five people in the United States have a smartwatch or fitness tracker, like a Fitbit device. Beyond helping individuals monitor their own heart rate, sleep, and physical activity, these devices offer tremendous potential to advance our collective understanding of health through research.

The National Institutes of Health’s All of Us Research Program has launched two new mental health and well-being surveys covering a range of behavioral and emotional health topics, including depression, anxiety, personality, self-harm, and others. Responses from participants will allow researchers to learn more about how mental health and well-being affect overall health. After completing the surveys, participants can choose to receive an immediate personality report based on their responses to one of the surveys.

The National Institutes of Health’s All of Us Research Program is now taking applications from international academic, not-for-profit, and health care organizations to access data through its Researcher Workbench.

To further advances in precision health, the All of Us Research Program is committed to engaging participants from all backgrounds and experiences, especially those underrepresented in biomedical research. Historically, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA+) people were often not represented as participants in medical studies because gender identity and/or sexual orientation were not always recorded.