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The Connect for Cancer Prevention Study (“Connect”) is a new prospective cohort of 200,000 adults in the United States designed to investigate the etiology of cancer and its outcomes, which may inform new approaches in precision prevention and early detection. Connect is funded and led by the National Cancer Institute in partnership with nine integrated health care systems: Health Partners (Minneapolis and St. Paul metro area); Henry Ford Health System (Detroit metro area); Kaiser Permanente Colorado (Denver metro area), Georgia (Atlanta metro area), Hawaii (Kauai, Oahu, Maui, and Hawaii islands), and Northwest (Salem to Portland, OR and parts of SW WA); Marshfield Clinic (north-central WI); Sandford Health (Sioux Falls, SD; Fargo, ND; Bismarck, ND; Bemidjj, MN areas); and, University of Chicago (metro area). Recruitment was launched in Summer 2021, participants are recruited from members or patients of these integrated health care systems who are between the ages of 40-65 years with no personal history of invasive cancer (other than non-melanoma skin cancer at the time of recruitment).
Eligible individuals are identified and invited by the integrated health care systems to join Connect. Participation including content, communication, and coordination of study activities occur electronically through the MyConnect participant application (“app”). At baseline and during at least 20 years of follow-up, serial surveys and biospecimens will be collected to study changes in exposures and biomarkers and evaluate critical exposure windows prior to disease diagnosis. Baseline and biospecimen survey content can be found here. Baseline biospecimens include blood, urine, saliva, and precursors lesions of the breast, colon, and rectum. Collection and storage protocols for biospecimens will align to new assay standards. Access to electronic medical records will provide retrospective and prospective data on medical conditions, screening history, diagnoses of cancer and other outcomes, and medications. Acquisition of precursor and tumor tissue specimens will allow for studies of the natural history and molecular subtypes of cancer.
This state-of-the-art cohort is built with an efficient, flexible, and integrated infrastructure that makes the most of modern interoperability standards and adherence to F.A.I.R. (findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability of research resources) principles. Visit this preprint for more information on the Connect infrastructure. The Connect data infrastructure and data sharing policies are designed to maximize the potential for scientific discovery while ensuring appropriate use of the resource and the NIH data sharing policy. Safeguards for privacy, confidentiality, and appropriate use of study resources are in place to protect participants’ expectations, information, and biospecimens. While the cohort has been designed for innovative cancer prevention research, the rich resource will be available to the broader scientific community following access protocols in the near future. To learn more about Connect, check out the Connect Overview Presentation, Executive Summary, Informed Consent (Long form) and study protocol.
Further questions about the Connect for Cancer Prevention Study can be directed to Mia M. Gaudet, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute.