The Million Veteran Program (MVP) is the nation’s largest biorepository of Veteran data and has one of the world’s most diverse cohorts of any genetic research program.
Thanks to our partnership and collaboration with more than 800 researchers, MVP data has already led to 100+ research projects, 525+ publications, and new findings about conditions such as anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), heart disease, kidney disease, cancer, and more.
A diverse cohort of Veterans
Our discoveries matter for all Veterans. Across age, race and ethnicity, sex, service branch, and service era, we’re making impactful discoveries that can improve health care. By studying a diverse group of Veterans, researchers gain insights that lead to more equitable and effective screenings and treatments, ensuring every Veteran benefits from advancements in health care.
Number of Veterans enrolled over time
MVP reached 1 million Veterans on November 8, 2023
Breakdown by age
More than 50% of MVP participants are aged 60+
Breakdown by sex
More than 10% of participants are women
Breakdown by race
More than 25% of participants are from minority racial backgrounds.
Breakdown by ethnicity
MVP has the largest number of Black participants of any research program in the world.
Service eras
Veterans in MVP come from every service branch and era
Page Content
MVP participants contribute three types of information
VA health records
- The VA electronic health record (EHR) contains records for millions of Veterans, including the roughly 9 million Veterans currently using the VA, and millions more who used VA care in the past. It contains patient data from inpatient and outpatient visits including diagnoses, procedures, laboratory tests, prescriptions, clinical notes, reports, and imaging.
- VA was one of the first hospital systems to adopt an EHR system in the 1980s and the current system has been in use for more than 40 years.
Self-reported surveys
- The MVP Baseline and Lifestyle Surveys collect information on Veterans’ health and well-being, including military experiences and exposures, family medical history, dietary habits, and much more. MVP requests that every participant complete these surveys, which have been in use since the program launched in 2011.
- In 2016, MVP launched a Gulf War Era Survey to collect information from a subset of participants who served during that era.
- In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the MVP COVID-19 Survey was developed and collected from participants between May 2020 and September 2021 to understand how the pandemic affected Veterans.
- To date, MVP’s 1,050,000+ Veteran enrollees have completed:
600,000+
Baseline Surveys
490,000+
Lifestyle Surveys
45,000+
Gulf War Surveys
255,000+
COVID-19 Surveys
Genetic data from blood draw (omics data)
When a Veteran completes the blood draw, their sample is analyzed to generate genotype data. Additionally, other omic data such as whole genome sequencing, methylation, and metabolomics, are generated on subsets of the samples. The remaining sample is stored for future use in a VA Central Biorepository. MVP has generated the following data for use by researchers:
- Data from ~ 650,000 genotyped individuals using custom Affymetrix genotype array is available to approved researchers
- Imputed to hybrid 1000Genomes/African Genome Resource reference panel
- Imputed to TOPMed reference panel
- Minority-specific genotype array with more than 750,000 genetic variants, including more than 300,000 that are more common in minority populations and relevant to their health and well-being (coming soon)
- ~100,000 whole genome sequences are currently available to approved researchers
- Data from ~40,000 methylation arrays is available to approved researchers
- Metabolomics and proteomics pilots (underway)
Other data sources
MVP requests additional data from sources both internal and external to VA based on the needs of research projects. This data is integrated into the MVP repository for active MVP enrollees. Other data sources include:
National Death Index (NDI)
National Death Index (NDI)
NDI contains date and cause of death obtained from state vital statistics offices. The data also includes ICD descriptions for underlying cause of death and the description of additional conditions. It serves to supplement information on death records in the VA and is provisioned by request to approved MVP projects.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)
CMS data is provisioned by request to approved MVP projects and contains data on active MVP enrollees for health care information captured by Medicare or Medicaid such as demographics, beneficiary summaries, inpatient and outpatient visits, vital status, facility and long-term care information, and prescription drugs.