Family history intake: a challenge to personalized approaches in health promotion and disease prevention

Abstract

Background In the absence of affordable and accessible genomic exams (known as "Omics"), the family history intake (FH) should become a core element of clinical care, as it reflects shared genetic, behavioral, and environmental factors and is a means of eliciting stigmatizing information about suicide, mental illness, alcoholism, sexual orientation, and past trauma that patients might be reluctant to share [1]. Several studies show that physicians often report that they collect family history information [2, 3] and value its contribution [4], but other studies using actual encounter data suggest that often family history is either not obtained or is under utilized in risk assessments [5-8]. [...]there is a paucity of literature about how family history information is captured in primary care. [...]research is needed to identify the factors that impede primary care givers from complying with family history guidelines and to assess the effectiveness various strategies for promoting more frequent FH documentation as was found in this study.