The Rochester Epidemiology Project is a collaboration between health care providers in southeastern MN. This collaboration allows researchers to study health and illnesses in the people living in this community.

Olmsted Medical Center, Mayo Clinic, Rochester Family Medicine Clinic, and other medical care providers in southeastern MN, have agreed to work together and share their medical records with researchers to better understand the causes and outcomes of different illnesses and to improve the health and health care of the entire county. This collaboration and sharing of medical information makes southeastern MN one of the few places in the United States, and one of the few places in the world, where "population-based" research can be accomplished. This is very important because health research based on people who are seen by a single doctor or at a single clinic has limitations and cannot be generalized. Using the Rochester Epidemiology Project, we can figure out the true frequency of certain conditions (e.g., how many new patients develop heart disease each year among 100 persons aged 70 to 79 years) and the true success of treatments (e.g., how many persons will respond positively to a new anti-depressant medication). This project has been supported by funds from the National Institutes of Health for over 40 years.