The UAE is preparing to turn genomic data from almost 920,000 people into personalised health-risk reports, as the country shifts its health system towards prevention and population-level risk management.
Health and Prevention Minister Ahmed bin Ali Al Sayegh said the authorities were preparing to release reports to participants in the UAE's genomic programme who had consented to receive them.
People identified as being at elevated risk will receive a personalised action plan that they can take to their primary or family doctor for further testing and preventive care, Al Sayegh said at the opening of the Future Health Summit in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday.
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“This is where the future is heading,” Al Sayegh said, describing a shift towards a more personalised approach to healthcare based on data and risk identification.
The minister did not specify how many of the nearly 920,000 participants are expected to receive an actionable finding, when the first reports will be distributed, or which conditions will be covered.
The development marks a further step in the UAE's use of population genomics, moving from the collection and analysis of large-scale genomic data towards incorporating findings into individual healthcare pathways.
From healthcare to “Healthy UAE”
Al Sayegh said the genomic programme is part of a wider national rethink of healthcare under an approach he called “Healthy UAE.”
He said President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed had called for a system that links the UAE's health systems and makes them more effective, with the response centred on preventing illness rather than waiting for people to become sick.
“It's beyond healthcare,” Al Sayegh said, describing Healthy UAE as being rooted in a national public health and wellbeing strategy intended to bring health and non-health sectors together.
The approach builds on work already under way to develop the UAE National Public Health Strategy 2026–2031, which is focused on prevention, health promotion, resilience and population wellbeing.
Abu Dhabi has already been pursuing a prevention-led model through its Healthy Living agenda, spanning areas including physical activity, nutrition, schools, workplaces and the wider food environment.
The national Healthy UAE approach would broaden that philosophy across the UAE, with sectors outside healthcare playing a greater role in determining health outcomes.
UAE to build unified health emergency system
Al Sayegh also announced that the UAE plans to establish a unified command-and-control system for the health emergency sector within two years.
He pointed to Abu Dhabi's unified ambulance services and integrated patient-journey systems as examples of infrastructure that could be expanded across the country.
The minister said recent regional instability had tested the resilience of the UAE's healthcare system, including hospitals and intensive-care capacity, and demonstrated the need for integrated emergency systems and a trained workforce.
The planned UAE-wide command system would seek to bring emergency health capabilities together under a more unified structure.
UAE digital-health cooperation in the region
The summit also highlighted the UAE's role in supporting health-system digitalisation elsewhere in the region. Dr Ibrahim Labib, who is leading digital transformation in Jordan's health sector, described cooperation with the UAE on a digital health centre connecting remote and rural hospitals.
Labib said 12 hospitals had been connected, enabling tele-ICU, telemedicine and tele-dialysis services. Radiology reporting times had fallen from several days to around two hours, while tens of thousands of dialysis sessions had been remotely monitored.
Greece's Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis also pointed to the UAE as a model for digital health, saying Greece had accelerated its own digital transformation after seeing developments in the UAE.
Georgiadis said Greece now has digital health records available through its MyHealth application and has screened millions of people for a range of diseases. He said he was looking to the UAE's experience as Greece considers its next step in genomics.
The UAE's emerging health-system model therefore combines population genomics, digital health, AI, prevention, emergency resilience and cross-government public-health policy.