Knowing your family’s medical history can save your life!
With a copy of your family health history, you and a health care professional can individualize your care to prevent and screen for conditions for which you may be at higher risk.
Find the Family Health Portrait form at:
http://www.hhs.gov/familyhistory/downloads/MyFamilyHealthPortrait--English.pdf
Knowing your family health history is important for knowing one’s risk factors for chronic diseases such as: heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. It is also important for knowing if one is at risk for a rare disease like sickle cell anemia or cystic fibrosis. Once you know your family history you are empowered to take steps to change these risks.
The Surgeon General’s initiative to help document family histories is found at:
https://familyhistory.hhs.gov/fhh-web/home.action
Once you fill in your family’s health information, you can save it and update it later. If you are visiting your doctor, you can print it out and save time in the waiting room and have a ready reference in the future.
Interesting fact: The Surgeon General has declared Thanksgiving to be Family Health History Day so people can feel comfortable asking these important questions.
For additional information, go to:
MedlinePlus: Family History
www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/familyhistory.html
Family Health History from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
www.cdc.gov/genomics/famhistory/index.htm
--Submitted by Alison Gehred
