Diversity and scale: Genetic architecture of 2,068 traits in the VA Million Veteran Program

One of the justifiable criticisms of human genetic studies is the
underrepresentation of participants from diverse populations. Lack of
inclusion must be addressed at scale to identify causal disease factors
and understand the genetic causes of health disparities. We present
genome-wide associations for 2068 traits from 635,969 participants in the
Department of Veterans Affairs Million Veteran Program, a longitudinal
study of diverse United States Veterans. Systematic analysis revealed
13,672 genomic risk loci; 1608 were only significant after including
non-European populations. Fine-mapping identified causal variants at 6318
signals across 613 traits. One-third (n = 2069) were identified as
participants from non-European populations. This reveals a broadly similar
genetic architecture across populations, highlights genetic insights
gained from underrepresented groups, and presents an extensive atlas of
genetic associations.