GAPPS Repository

The GAPPS Repository will become a diverse and comprehensive collection of data and specimens, and serve as a significant resource for future research efforts to determine causes and find solutions to premature birth and stillbirth. Collection sites will obtain data and process samples throughout different stages of pregnancy and childbirth, and six weeks after delivery.

Data will be gathered from medical histories and questionnaires completed by participants. Specimens will be collected during regular prenatal visits at the same time routine samples are taken. These data and samples will be available to researchers around the world, upon review and approval by the GAPPS Utilization Committee.

Goals and Objectives

Health Benefits

• Improve maternal, newborn and child health
• Identify women and populations at-risk for premature labor
• Improve the quality of prenatal care through participating healthcare facilities
• Reduce the number of premature births and stillbirths in the United States and globally

Economic Benefits

• Reduce societal costs of premature babies, estimated at $26 billion in the United States for medical care services, maternal delivery costs, special education services, and lost household and labor productivity
• Provide a new resource that will inspire product innovation to improve birth outcomes (e.g., new diagnostics, therapeutics, and prevention)
• Improve productivity by reducing parental lost work days due to premature labor and birth
• Focus limited resources on causal research rather than on data and specimen collection

About GAPPS Collection Sites

Collection sites include the hospitals listed below, recruited because of their sophisticated neonatal care; high rate of premature births; and socioeconomically, racially and ethnically diverse populations. GAPPS also recently created a partnership with the Puget Sound Blood Center in Seattle to combine efforts and resources to collect umbilical cord blood from diverse populations for transplantation.

• Deaconess Hospital, Spokane, WA
• Kadlec Medical Center, Richland, WA
• Swedish Medical Center, Seattle, WA
• University of Washington (UW) Medical Center, Seattle, WA
• Yakima Valley Medical Center, Yakima, WA