GREENSBORO, N.C. — As families come together for the holidays, it's a great time to talk about more than just what’s on the table – it’s a chance to talk about family health history. Thanksgiving Day -- National Family Health History Day-- is a good time to start the conversation, but knowing your family’s health history is something we should think about year-round.
To explain why it’s so important, how it can affect our healthcare decisions, and how to start these conversations, with us today is Dr. Chad Haldeman-Englert, with Cone Health Precision Health.
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How far back should we look in our family tree, and who should we include?
"When we tend to see people in our clinic, what we often do is we generate what's called a pedigree. And so that is what especially a three-generation pedigree at least. And so that's the end of that's coming to see us plus any of their siblings kind of on that generational level. But then we wanna know about their parents and maybe their siblings on that generational level and maybe even go one higher up to the grandparents."
How does knowing this information impact our healthcare decisions going forward?
"Let's say, you know that there's something genetic in your family, then one of the things to think about is actually yourself getting tested to see if that's something that you inherited or that you may also have, if you do actually carry something that runs in the family, then that definitely could have implications on when you might wanna get testing or screening performed, especially for things like breast cancer or colon cancer. Those sorts of things you would wanna start at an earlier age than what's typically recommended for just the general population."
Talking with family members about health history is not always easy. What is your advice on how to start that conversation?
"Sometimes it's good to maybe just talk about the conditions that you have and then maybe you might wanna ask, 'Has anyone in the family ever had anything similar?' Like you could say, 'Oh, I was diagnosed with so-and-so if you're comfortable talking about it,' and see if there's anyone else in the family that's had anything similar."
What if someone doesn't want to talk about it?
"I sort of say you do the best with what you can and so sometimes you can go to other family members. One thing I would say is if you're older and maybe you wanna impart that information to younger generations. I think that could be really important and really helpful. We see a lot of people who come to see us in the clinic who basically are there because they're doing it for future generations."