The purpose of this symposium is to share best practice and knowledge about the potential impact on global health from large-scale population-based prospective studies. It will showcase scientific discoveries that have been made from well-established longitudinal research studies and the importance of having such studies located in strategic parts of the world to better understand the genomic, lifestyle and environmental determinants of a wide range of diseases. Beyond understanding the impact of genomic diversity on health, this symposium will also discuss the huge advances in our understanding of how data from wearables, imaging scans and blood biomarkers can be used to predict, diagnose and monitor disease. The symposium will seek to address the challenges faced in different populations when collecting, curating, accessing and analyzing such large-scale, complex data and how such data are being translated into improvements in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease.