Abstract
Family health history (FHH) is the most basic form of genomic information. Although public health efforts have been made to promote FHH collection, empirical data on the extent to which community residents in rural areas actively collect FHH is limited. Therefore, we examined rates of FHH collection in a community-based sample of South Carolina residents. We conducted a structured telephone survey in a random sample of black and white South Carolina residents. Respondents were asked if they had ever actively collected FHH from relatives using an item developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Overall, 42 % of respondents reported that they had actively collected their FHH. Blacks were significantly more likely than whites to have collected their FHH in bivariate analysis, but race did not have a significant association with FHH collection in the multivariate model (OR = 1.36, 95 % CI = 0.79, 2.35, p = 0.26). The likelihood of collecting FHH was increased among respondents whose last medical visit occurred in the past year compared to those whose last medical visit was more than 1 year ago (OR = 2.00, 95 % CI = 1.12, 3.56, p = 0.02). In addition, older respondents had a reduced likelihood of collecting their FHH (OR = 0.69, 95 % CI = 0.53, 0.90, p = .01). Lastly, women were about twice as likely as men to have collected their FHH (OR = 1.83, 95 % CI = 1.12, 2.99, p = 0.02). Greater efforts are needed to increase the collection of FHH information; these efforts may need to target men, the elderly, and individuals who have not had a recent medical visit.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge the University of South Carolina’s Institute for Public Service and Policy Research for data collection. We are very appreciative to all of the individuals who participated in this study.
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This research was supported by the National Cancer Institute grants #UG1CA189848 and #P30CA138313. One of the co-authors of the study is a founder and shareholder of an online social network for family health history that is currently under development. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at the Medical University of South Carolina, and informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. All procedures performed in the study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the of the institutional and national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
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Hughes Halbert, C., Welch, B., Lynch, C. et al. Social determinants of family health history collection. J Community Genet 7, 57–64 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12687-015-0251-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12687-015-0251-3