Family health history – a record of the diseases and health conditions in a family – is an effective and inexpensive method by which healthcare providers can assess an individual’s overall health and risk factors for disease. However, a major effort is needed for gathering, storing, and sharing family health history data in order to implement this practice into clinical care with the ultimate goal of improving global health.

Mission

By better understanding the needs in each individual country, the FHH project aims to promote the benefits of family health history for patient self-knowledge, family sharing, public screening, pre-screening for genetic testing in a clinical setting, and research.

Goals

• Identify methods for obtaining family health history data in a standardized format.
• Develop data storage solutions for easy wide-scale data input and sharing.
• Develop risk assessment algorithms.
• Combine clinical, genomic, and environmental data to create new knowledge for patient care.

Vision of the Future

With multiple stakeholders all collecting and storing FHH data separately, the most efficient model would be a shared family-centric record, with access controlled by each family member to support their own needs. View our model of the future which depicts how family health history may potentially be collected, stored, and accessed.

Future Model of Family Health History

Through their research and contributions, G2MC Family Health History members are dedicated to advancing the mission of G2MC and the Family Health History subgroup globally.

Co-Leads

Grant M. Wood | Intermountain Healthcare, Intermountain Precision Genomics | Salt Lake City, Utah, United States

Theodora Katsila, PhD | Institute of Chemical Biology, National Hellenic Research Foundation, Athens, Greece

Members

Pratiksha Gyawali, MBBS, MD | Faculty Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Kathmandu University School of Medical Sciences- Dhulikhel Hospital, Kavrepalanchok, Nepal

Taobo Hu, MBBS, MD, PhD | Department of Breast Surgery, Peking University People’s Hospital, Peking University, Beijing, China | Publications

Baneye Maiga, MD | H3AFRICA/Neurogenetic Research Lab, University of Sciences, Techniques, and Technologies of Bamako, Mali

Lori A. Orlando, MD, MHS, MMCI | Duke Center for Applied Genomics & Precision Medicine, Duke University, USA

Shane Quinonez, MD | The University of Michigan, USA

Meow-Keong Thong, MBBS, MPaeds, MD, FHGSA, FAMM, FASc | Genetics & Metabolism Unit, Department of Paediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia | Publications

Tomoharu Tokutomi, MD, PhD | Department of Clinical Genetics, School of Medicine, Iwate Medical University, Morioka, Japan | Publications

Aniefiok John Udoakang, PhD | West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens, Department of Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology, School of Biological Sciences, College of Basic and Applied Science, University of Ghana, Ghana

Thilina Wanigasekera, MBBS, MSc, MPA| Ministry of Health, Nutrition and Indigenous Medicine, Sri Lanka

View the G2MC Publications webpage for a list of Family Health History publications either written by G2MC members or relevant to Family Health History and the G2MC organization.

G2MC Publications

Access family health history tools and resources being implemented or used by FHH subgroup members. To contact a specific member about a resource listed, please use the Contact Us form and indicate in the description field who you wish to get in touch with. Check back as we will continuously update this page with new and emerging resources.

f-tree: A questionnaire-based pedigree chart creation software tool.
FHH Member Contact: Tomoharu Tokutomi

MeTree: A patient-facing web-based family and personal health history collection and clinical decision support software program.
FHH Member Contact: Lori Orlando

MiGene Family History Application: A mobile app available for Android that assists physicians in gathering patient demographic data and medical histories.
FHH Member Contact: Shane Quinonez