The Emory/Georgia Tech Predictive Health Institute (PHI), through its Center for Health Discovery and Well Being (CHDWB), is a component of the Georgia Clinical and Translational Science Alliance, a collaborative effort of Emory University, Morehouse School of Medicine, the University of Georgia, and Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). The Predictive Health Institute was established as part of the Emory University strategic plan in 2005 as an innovative approach to understanding and optimizing health that focuses on maintaining health rather than treating disease. The CHDWB was established as the clinical expression of Predictive Health, with the purpose of integrating PHI principles with scientific discovery, health focused research and education using a combination of established and cutting edge tools to identify and measure risks and deviations from health. The CHDWB serves as a practical test of the concept of health-focused care, as well as an academic resource and a clinical-translational laboratory with its innovative delivery model and longitudinal database and tissue repository.
Two core CHDWB goals have been to describe health in social, cultural and biological terms, and to use these tools to understand and predict deviations from health and overall health prognosis. A variety of metrics are used in this process, including a battery of questionnaires, assessments and laboratory tests that are either disease specific (e.g. cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, and atherosclerosis) or follow common pathways such as oxidative stress, inflammation, and immune status.
The CHDWB established a prospective longitudinal cohort of approximately 750 individuals who were enrolled as early as 2006 and have undergone annual assessments as participation permitted and excepting attrition. Participants from the Emory University pool of employees were randomly offered to join the CHDWB cohort. Those who agreed to participate and who provided informed consent were predominantly heathy individuals.
