At the next Prevention Research Center for Healthy Neighborhoods (PRCHN) seminar, Patty Marshall, professor of bioethics and co-director of the Center for Genetics Research Ethics and Law, and Aaron Goldenberg, associate professor of bioethics and associate director of the Center for Genetic Research Ethics and Law, will present “Community Voices Project: Family History, Place, and Chronic Disease.”
The seminar will be held Wednesday, Nov. 11, from noon to 1:15 p.m. in the ground floor conference room of the BioEnterprise Building.
In their presentation, Marshall and Goldenberg will discuss how “place or neighborhood factors” could be meaningfully incorporated into family health history assessments to enhance patient-clinician interactions and promote tailored public health prevention strategies. Family history tools should ideally assess the complex interplay of shared genetic, environmental and behavioral factors that impact health outcomes for individuals and families, they say. In practice, however, family health history assessments rarely incorporate social and environmental exposures, even though these factors are recognized widely as major contributors to chronic diseases.
Marshall and Goldenberg will explore how a family history assessment that incorporates multiple determinants of health may improve the ability to assess and address health disparities through an increased understanding of gene-environment interactions within public health prevention programs in communities. Their presentation also will report on findings from a recent study that assessed beliefs about family history, genetics and neighborhood influences on chronic disease risk among racially and ethnically diverse individuals in low-income communities in Cleveland.
The PRCHN Seminar Series is open to the public and takes place from noon to 1:15 p.m. on the second Wednesday of every month in the PRCHN Ground Floor Conference Room, BioEnterprise Building. Parking is available and a light lunch is served.
Contact Susan Petrone at smp146@case.edu for more information.