Unlocking the power of population health cohort studies with biobanking in Australia

Abstract

Biobanks have great potential in advancing population health research by enabling access to biospecimens that can be linked to health data. Governments and research institutes worldwide have made large commitments to biobanking in recent years, often through combining cohort studies and biospecimen collections. We aim to explore the opportunities and challenges of establishing a population-scale biobank in Australia. Using existing longitudinal cohort studies to collect biospecimens can be an efficient way to rapidly advance research infrastructure in Australia. The 45 and Up Study is a large-scale longitudinal cohort with self-reported health, behaviour and lifestyle data, and may be one suitable candidate to include biospecimen collections to contribute to a population biobank. However, there are a number of ethical and practical issues specific to biospecimen collections, such as ensuring the privacy and rights of participants are protected, and ensuring sufficient resourcing to support infrastructure. Overcoming these challenges and bringing together diverse fields of expertise will enable us to maximise the potential of cohort studies and biobanks. In combination, these data sources can efficiently advance population health research beyond what is achievable with either of these resources separately.