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Office of Genomics and Disease Prevention  
Office of Genomics and Disease Prevention


Family History for Preventive Medicine
and Public HealthFamily History Public Health Initiative

The CDC Office of Genomics and Disease Prevention
(OGDP) in collaboration with several CDC programs and National Institutes of Health (NIH) has embarked on 
a public health initiative to evaluate whether family
history information can be used to assess risk for
common diseases and influence early detection and prevention strategies.  Previous research has shown 
that people who have close relatives with certain
diseases like, heart disease, diabetes, and cancers,
are more likely to develop those diseases themselves.  However, based on our public health work as well as our personal experience with the health care system, family history is clearly underutilized in the practice of preventive medicine.

In early 2002, OGDP began a Family History Public Health Initiative by reviewing the literature and publishing a paper that introduced the concept of using family history for disease prevention: Can family history be used as a tool for public health preventive medicine?  The paper described an evaluation framework for assessing the analytic validity (how accurately disease among relatives is reported), clinical validity (ability of FHx to predict future disease), clinical utility (risks and benefits of the approach), and the ethical, legal and social implications of collecting and using family history information.  In May 2002, OGDP convened a panel of experts to discuss family history as a risk factor for chronic diseases, methods for assessing and stratifying risk, and the potential of family history information for motivating people to change their behavior.  Twelve articles based on workshop presentations were published in the February 2003 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

A Family History Work Group has been formed to conduct research and develop a family history tool for disease prevention. The multidisciplinary group has established criteria for diseases to include in a family history tool, reviewed the literature for nearly 40 diseases, and developed a prototype tool with 16 diseases.  Ongoing work includes pilot studies to further refine the tool, development of algorithms to assess risk, development of a resource manual for primary care providers, and design and funding of studies to evaluate the validity and utility of the approach.

Last Updated October 12, 2004