New Web site sets up health family trees
The goal: Just as people create ancestral family trees, create a family health tree. It may sound old-fashioned in this era of gene discovery. But genetics specialists use these “pedigrees” to look for patterns of inherited illnesses that can provide a window on someone’s brewing health risks.
“Family health history is the first genetic test, but it encompasses much more than genes,” says James O’Leary of the nonprofit Genetic Alliance.
The surgeon general’s office issued the first attempt to guide creation of family health trees in 2004, with a form patients could print out and carry to the doctor.
Today, the site reopens - at familyhistory.hhs.gov - after a facelift to make it not only more in-depth but truly electronic.
It’s private; users download the information to their own computers. Then they can e-mail a tree-in-progress to family members to fill in missing information.
Direct to Website: https://familyhistory.hhs.gov
Source: AP
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