Electronic Health Record–Linked Biobank Expansion Reveals Global Health Inequities

Electronic health record (EHR)-linked biobanks are transforming biomedical research, enabling population-scale studies that integrate genomic, clinical, and phenotypic data. Yet as these resources proliferate, it remains unclear how their research outputs reflect global health priorities. This article presents a comprehensive review of five globally established EHR-linked biobanks: UK Biobank, the Million Veteran Program, FinnGen, the All of Us Research Program, and the Estonian Biobank. Drawing on 14,142 peer-reviewed publications from 2000 to 2024, we show how each biobank displays a distinct thematic profile, shaped by institutional mandates, population focus, and methodological design. We further evaluate alignment with global disease burden by mapping biobank-linked publications to 25 high-priority disease areas using World Health Organization disability-adjusted life years data. Our burden-adjusted gap scores and opportunity indices reveal striking underrepresentation of conditions such as malaria, tuberculosis, and diarrheal diseases when comparing biobank research output against high-priority diseases.