Blockchain-Oriented Consent Management for Genomic and Population Health Research: A Comprehensive Review

Abstract

The rapid expansion of genomic and population health research has created a wealth of new opportunities in precision medicine, large-scale cohort studies, and population-level interventions. However, this growing activity has also raised considerable challenges around consent management, privacy protection, and governance of sensitive health and genomic data. Current consent practices and infrastructures are often static, paper-based, and inefficient for capturing the dynamism, longevity, and interoperability needs of modern health research. Blockchain technologies, with their decentralized, immutable, and transparent properties, show significant promise in addressing these issues by creating systems that are both more participant-centric and practically aligned with the needs of precision medicine.

This review article aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the opportunities and challenges around blockchain-oriented consent management systems for genomic and population health research. It analyzes the existing evidence from peer-reviewed publications, proof-of-concept demonstrations, and pilot projects. Key themes explored include the existing consent practices and their limitations, features of blockchain and its relevance for healthcare, architectures for blockchain-based consent management systems, interoperability with federated learning and privacy-preserving technologies, ethical, legal, and social implications, as well as potential barriers to implementation. Finally, the article presents future research directions that may hold particular promise for practical deployment at scale, such as hybrid blockchain architectures, integration with artificial intelligence approaches, and policy initiatives to better enable ethically and technically sound consent management.