EpiHealth database and biobank

The purpose of EpiHealth is to build up a research resource that enables research to identify the causes of our most common public diseases that occur in middle-aged and elderly people. Many of these diseases are inherited to some extent and therefore we need not only to study the environmental impact and lifestyle factors but also genes to understand why these diseases occur, so that in the future we can prevent and treat them.

For this reason, EpiHealth will collect comprehensive data about you in order to monitor your health and lifestyle for a long time to come, by storing data from your survey, the measurements from your visit to the test center and storing your blood samples and, via public records and medical records, follow if you may develop various diseases in the future. Of course, you have the opportunity to refuse EpiHealth's access to your medical records or other records, if you so wish.

A list of the data that EpiHealth will store about you can be found here as well as the public registers with which we link EpiHealth's database. Your privacy is important to us and we follow the GDPR and the rules that exist for data management at our universities. More information on how your data is protected in EpiHealth can be found here.

Collection of data and blood samples for research

Researchers who want access to EpiHealth's samples and data must have their research project reviewed and approved by EpiHealth and an ethics review board. Some of the blood samples in EpiHealth biobank will probably be analyzed by different laboratories in Sweden or in different parts of the world at both academic research centers and private companies. However, these partners will not have access to your name or social security number. They will discard or return any blood that remains after analysis.

All information regarding your investigation results, including the genetic tests, will be processed with the utmost certainty and there is no risk that they will be made public or used by authorities, insurance companies or employers, etc. The only exception is that the police with prosecutors can claim the right to information is extremely rare that it happens in Sweden. In order for you to be able to follow what happens to samples and data collected in EpiHealth, research projects that have been granted withdrawals from the EpiHealth biobank and database will be announced here one month before withdrawals take place. If you think that these research projects are against your will, you can request your withdrawal from EpiHealth and your data and samples will not continue to be used.