Family History and Public Health
What is a Family History?
Family history is health information about you and your close relatives. Family members have many things in common which show up in recognizable traits such as eye and hair color and height. Family members typically share a common environment, lifestyle, culture and certain habits. Both genes and environment influence risk of disease, such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and asthma. A Family history tool can help document the health history of family members and can be used to help understand what conditions or diseases run in a family. Family health history changes with time and should be updated regularly. For example, as family members grow older certain diseases may develop. Understanding and knowing your family health history can help you and your doctor understand your risk of developing certain diseases.
Why is a Family History Important to Public Health?
Collecting family health history is not new; in fact, health care providers and genetic counselors have used family health history information for many years to help individuals understand what diseases or conditions run in a family. However, applying family health history information in a public health setting is a new application of this tool.
With the increasing evidence that many diseases of public health importance are influenced by both genetic and environmental factors, it is important to use this knowledge to prevent disease. Effective genetic tests that can accurately screen populations at risk for a disease are years away from public health application. Because family health history is an important risk factor for most diseases of public heath importance, it is an appealing tool that is currently available. In addition, collecting family history information is accessible and inexpensive.
Some of the potential ways family history information could be used in a public health setting include:
- as an early gauge to identify those at higher than average risk for disease
- as a mechanism to target prevention effort
- as an increased or earlier screening
Additional work needs to be done to fully understand how to best use this family information in a public health setting. There are currently several initiatives focused on this need, including the CDC NOPHG Family History Resource and Tools, and the Surgeon General's Family History Initiative.