Category: family history

Happy Thanksgiving 2021: Family Health History in the COVID-19 Era

Knowing and acting on your family health history can protect your health. Use My Family Health Portrait to take the first steps: Collect your family helath history - Share it with your doctor and family; an image of an extended family with a button labeled VISIT My Family Health Portrait

For a second year in a row, this Thanksgiving might not look the same as the ones before it, but some things haven’t changed. Even if you can’t see your loved ones in person, Thanksgiving is still a great time to talk to your family members about your family health history. Having one or more family members Read More >

Posted on by Ridgely Fisk Green and Muin J. Khoury, Office of Genomics and Precision Public Health, Centers for Disease Control and PreventionLeave a comment

An Evaluation of “My Family Health Portrait”: Strengths and Opportunities

2019-2020 Page Views by Age

CDC has hosted My Family Health Portrait (MFHP) since September 2018. Understanding current use of MFHP can help identify opportunities to improve and promote MFHP. We used Google Analytics to explore use of MFHP from Jan 1, 2019 to Dec 31, 2020. Google Analytics is a third-party tool that tracks user information, such as browser, Read More >

Posted on by Devin Yu, Class of 2022 Pharm.D. program, Northeastern University, and Ridgely Fisk Green, Office of Genomics and Precision Public Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia4 Comments

Tier 1 Guidelines on Family-Based Screening for Hereditary Hemochromatosis

Tier 1 Guidelines for Hereditary Hemochromatosis with a photo of a family with adult children

An important function in public health genomics is to identify evidence-based genomic applications that can save lives and prevent disease. In maintaining the PHGKB Tier Coded Guidelines database, we routinely look for Tier 1 applications of genomic testing strategies that have evidence-based guidance supporting implementation in specific clinical scenarios. We only consider recommendations that have Read More >

Posted on by W. David Dotson, Katherine Kolor, Muin J. Khoury, Office of Genomics and Precision Public Health, Office of Science; and Scott D. Grosse, National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental DisabilitiesLeave a commentTags ,

2020: A Challenging Year of Progress for Genomics and Precision Public Health

2020 with an arrow to 2021 with a double helix below and a COVID-19 virus and a masked family and under 2021 a person getting the COVID-19 vaccine

It is time to wrap up an eventful 2020 which unfortunately was dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic. From January 2020 through November 2020, we saw a major increase in visits to our website (> 2.6 million views, compared to 2 million views in 2019 and 1.2 million views in 2018). In our year end blog, Read More >

Posted on by Muin J. Khoury and Scott Bowen, Office of Genomics and Precision Public Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GeorgiaLeave a commentTags ,

Happy Thanksgiving 2020: Family and Family Health History Are As Important As Ever

a family of four eating a Thanksgiving meal

This Thanksgiving might not look the same as the ones before it, but some things haven’t changed. Even if you can’t see your loved ones in person, Thanksgiving is still a great time to talk to your family members about your family health history. Having one or more family members with a disease can mean Read More >

Posted on by Ridgely Fisk Green and Muin J Khoury, Office of Genomics and Precision Public Health, Centers for Disease Control and PreventionLeave a commentTags

Happy Thanksgiving 2019: Collect and Share Your Family Health History: It Could Save Your Life!

a multi generational family sharing a Thanksgiving meal

Happy Thanksgiving Day! It is time for our yearly message on the importance of family health history to your own health. Year after year we promote the value on family health history around Thanksgiving day and all year round. By knowing and acting on your family history, you can reduce your disease risk and actually Read More >

Posted on by Muin J Khoury, Director, Office of Genomics and Precision Public Health, Centers for Disease Control and PreventionLeave a comment

Happy Thanksgiving 2018: Protect your family’s health by using My Family Health Portrait to collect and share your family health history

a multigenerational familly eating a thanksgiving meal and a picture of DNA is hanging on the wall

Happy Thanksgiving Day! It is time to send our yearly message on the importance of family health history to your own health. Every year we emphasize a slightly different version of this message. In 2017, we highlighted the simple fact that even in the age of genomics and precision medicine, family health history remains as Read More >

Posted on by Muin J Khoury, Director, Office of Public Health Genomics, Centers for Disease Control and PreventionLeave a commentTags

Announcing a New CDC Home for the U.S. Surgeon General’s Family Health History Tool

screenshot of the My Family Health Portrait located within the CDC PHGKB database

On Thanksgiving Day 2004, the U.S. Surgeon General launched a national public health campaign called the U.S. Surgeon General’s Family History Initiative. The campaign quickly became a yearly event to raise public awareness about the importance of family health history, and encourage all families to learn more about their health histories. The initiative also launched Read More >

Posted on by Muin J. Khoury, Office of Public Health Genomics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Laura Lyman Rodriguez, Division of Policy, Communications and Education, National Human Genome Research InstituteLeave a commentTags , , ,

The Impact of Family History on the Public Health Burden of Diagnosed Diabetes, Undiagnosed Diabetes and Prediabetes in the United States: Using Family History for Diabetes Control and Prevention

a multigenerational family with glucose strips and a person holding a glucose meter and DNA in the foreground

This blog post is a summary of our recently published paper in Genetics in Medicine. Type 2 diabetes is a major public health problem in the United States and globally. Among adults 20 years and older, 9.2% have diagnosed diabetes (DD), 3.1% have undiagnosed diabetes (UD), and 36% have prediabetes (PD), a major precursor for Read More >

Posted on by Ramal Moonesinghe, Office of Minority Health and Health Equity; Gloria L. A. Beckles, Division of Diabetes Translation, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion; Tiebin Liu, National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities; Muin J. Khoury, MD, Office of Public Health Genomics, Centers for Disease Control and PreventionLeave a commentTags

Happy Thanksgiving 2017: Take time to collect, share, and act on your family health history, it may save your life!

Happy Thanksgiving 2017 with an image of DNA and pumpkins and leaves

Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that we have an almost identical message around each Thanksgiving Day. Collect, share, and act on your family health history! It seems every year we emphasize a slightly different version of this message. In 2016, we highlighted the emergence of new tools that can help consumers and Read More >

Posted on by Muin J Khoury, Director, Office of Public Health Genomics, Centers for Disease Control and PreventionLeave a comment