TL;DR: NIH’s All of Us Research Program has laid out 2026 plans to widen pediatric enrollment from its current birth-to-4 pilot to a broader ages 0-12 cohort, while operating on an FY2026 appropriation that NIH itself describes as roughly a 72% decline from FY2023 funding levels. The two developments are directly linked: NIH says the funding reduction is the reason pediatric cohort-building has been slower and more constrained than originally planned.
What’s changing: pediatric enrollment moves toward ages 0-12
All of Us, NIH’s longitudinal precision-medicine cohort study, began limited pediatric enrollment in 2024 through five partner sites: the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Arizona and Banner Health, Henry Ford Health (Michigan), San Ysidro Health (California), and Community Health Center, Inc. (Connecticut). That pilot has enrolled children from birth through age 4, gathering longitudinal health data — surveys, physical measurements, electronic health record data, and biospecimens — with parental or guardian consent.
The program’s 2026 plans call for expanding the eligible pediatric age range up to age 12, moving beyond the initial birth-to-4 pilot toward the broader pediatric cohort the program has described as a long-term goal since children’s health data collection began. NIH has noted that more than 100,000 children are already linked to the program through enrolled parents or guardians — a pool the program has pointed to as the base it eventually wants to enroll and follow longitudinally, funding permitting.
For research administrators and site coordinators at partner institutions, an expanded age band means broader IRB and consent-process considerations (assent requirements scale with a child’s age, not just parental consent), more complex recruitment logistics across pediatric subspecialties, and longer-horizon data stewardship planning as the cohort begins to include participants who will eventually age into the adult study population.
The funding picture: a real cut, with different numbers depending on the comparison
NIH’s own All of Us funding page states that the program received approximately $153 million in FY2026 — a decline of roughly 72% from FY2023 funding levels. NIH attributes the drop primarily to the expiration of 21st Century Cures Act “Cures Innovation” funding that had supplemented the program’s regular appropriation in earlier years, without a corresponding increase in annual appropriated funding to offset it.
NIH states directly that this reduction has required cuts across the program and its partner organizations, resulting in reduced participant enrollment, scaled-back data collection, and a slower build-out of the pediatric cohort than originally envisioned — with available resources prioritized toward preserving existing participant relationships, data privacy and security, and biospecimen handling over expanding new enrollment.
Some trade coverage has reported a smaller year-over-year decline (in the mid-30% range) rather than the ~72% figure NIH cites against FY2023. The discrepancy is very likely a function of comparison basis — FY2023 funding included the now-expired Cures Innovation supplement, so a comparison against a more recent, already-reduced fiscal year naturally produces a smaller percentage change than a comparison against the Cures-inclusive FY2023 baseline. Readers should treat the ~72%-from-FY2023 figure as NIH’s own published comparison and be cautious about treating any single percentage as the whole story without checking which two fiscal years are actually being compared.
We were not able to independently confirm trade-press characterizations of a 2026 All of Us data release as the program’s “largest-ever” multiomics release; that specific claim is not corroborated on NIH’s own program pages as of this writing, so we’re not repeating it here. NIH’s public materials do confirm that new data releases and additional studies leveraging the cohort are part of the 2026 plan, without NIH itself quantifying the release in superlative terms.
Why this matters for research administration
All of Us is one of the largest NIH-funded participant cohorts, and its funding trajectory is a useful bellwether for how NIH is prioritizing large, multi-year infrastructure programs relative to investigator-initiated grants during a period of broader federal research funding pressure. For institutions that are current or prospective All of Us partner sites, the practical implications include:
- Consent and assent processes that need to scale with age — pediatric research broadly relies on tiered assent frameworks distinct from adult informed consent, and an expanded 0-12 age band will touch a wider range of pediatric consent capacity than the birth-4 pilot did. Institutions building or revising these processes may find comparison useful against broad consent under 45 CFR 46.116(d) and general biobank specimen consent models, both of which cover tiered and dynamic consent structures relevant to longitudinal cohort studies.
- Reduced near-term enrollment capacity at the program level, given NIH’s own statement that the funding decline has constrained enrollment and data collection broadly, not just for the pediatric arm.
- Data governance planning for institutions handling pediatric genomic, EHR, and biospecimen data under an expanding age range — see CASRAI’s guide on data management planning for clinical trials for related EDC, case report form, and retention considerations that apply analogously to cohort-study data flows.
What to watch
Three things will clarify how this plays out over the rest of 2026: whether Congress restores or further reduces All of Us appropriations in the FY2027 cycle; whether the pediatric age expansion to 0-12 rolls out at the same five partner sites or adds new ones; and whether NIH publishes updated participant-enrollment and data-release figures that can be checked against the claims currently circulating in trade coverage. CASRAI will update this page as NIH publishes further detail.
Frequently asked questions
What age range does All of Us pediatric enrollment currently cover, and what is changing?
As of the current pilot, All of Us enrolls children from birth through age 4 at five partner sites. The program’s 2026 plans call for expanding eligibility up to age 12.
How much did All of Us funding actually decline for FY2026?
NIH’s own program funding page states approximately $153 million for FY2026, a roughly 72% decline from FY2023 levels, driven mainly by the expiration of supplemental Cures Innovation funding. Other reporting has cited smaller percentage declines using different fiscal-year comparisons — treat any single percentage figure as tied to a specific comparison baseline rather than a universal number.
Which institutions currently participate in All of Us pediatric enrollment?
Five partner organizations: the University of Pittsburgh; the University of Arizona and Banner Health; Henry Ford Health (Michigan); San Ysidro Health (California); and Community Health Center, Inc. (Connecticut).
