Team ARIA

By Kia Miles

In our previous posts, we’ve talked about what family health history is, its importance, and how to collect it. This post is dedicated to exploring some of the difficulties one may face when collecting their family health history.  There are four major challenges to collecting clear family health histories.  Read more and get ready to address these challenges that lead to gaps in family health history knowledge when talking to your own family members.

Language Barriers. Sometimes, people have different ways of referring to specific illnesses.  For example, some people refer to diabetes mellitus being referred to as “sugar” or high blood pressure being referred to as “pressure”. Therefore, the person collecting family health history has to be very aware to collect as much information as possible about a condition.  Sometimes, it will require digging a little deeper and asking more questions. Asking a family member about their symptoms, medications, or even when they were diagnosed may help uncover the identity of the illness.

Stigma. One reason for unknown family health histories is stigma.  Stigma refers to a negative perception that influences future behavior. Stigmas are common in families and across cultures but get in the way of providing the best support for health outcomes.  For example, there may be a stigma about going to a doctor to be seen for a specific illness because there is concern that a person will be judged negatively by others. Consequently, a person may decide not to go to the doctor. Unfortunately, stigma often leads to family members never talking about important health condition and this lack of health information can creates a gaps in receiving quality health care.

Disease is common. Numerous diseases run through everyone’s family. It is perfectly normal to have multiple diseases in a family health history and there are lifestyle choices that can decrease the risk of contracting them. As an example of how common some of these diseases are, we have created a word cloud below. This word cloud is the sum of 7 team members’ family health histories. The bigger the words the more often they were mentioned, and every word was mentioned at least once. We hope to show that even our small group of people have family members with many diseases and that we can reduce the burden of stigma in other families.

 

Low- or No- Access to Blood Relatives. Often, people learn about their family health histories when they have conversations with their relatives who are aware of important health information within families.  However, many people are unable to have conversations about family health history with relatives. Examples include: people who have been adopted and have no connection to their birth families, individuals who experience language or physical barriers, people who were born to parents who used assisted fertility, people who do not talk to family members because of strained relationships, or family members who are deceased. Individuals who are unable to discuss family history with their families may find genetic testing to be a helpful option to help fill in the missing pieces. Genetic testing uses your DNA to identify potential risk factors for specific diseases1, which can be a great source of information if asking family members about health conditions doesn’t give clear information.

Concern About What Happens After A Family Health History is Known. Some people may be hesitant to learn about their family health history because they are unsure how information will make them feel afterwards2. Other people may feel a sense of dread at the thought of an increased chance of getting an illness that another family member has. There is no certainty that someone will have a disease just because it exists in their family history. Instead, the knowledge of your family history gives YOU the power to make better decisions about all aspects of your health.

 

References

1. Genetic testing and common disorders in a public health framework: how to assess relevance and possibilities – European Journal of Human Genetics. https://www.nature.com/articles/ejhg2010249. Accessed April 7, 2020
2. Motivations, Barriers, and Behaviors Related to Obtaining and Discussing Family Health History: A Sex-Based Comparison Among Young Adults – Frontiers in Public Health. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.3389%2Ffpubh.2015.00249. Accessed April 7, 2020.