Focus on Public Health
Just as it has been in the realm of clinical medicine, Genetics in Medicine will be at the forefront of public health genomics, providing the definitive forum for practitioners and researchers as we seek to improve public health through judicious application of emerging knowledge and technology.
As genomic analysis becomes more affordable and our understanding of genomic influences on disease becomes more robust, the prospect of applying genomic information in the public health setting becomes feasible. There currently exist calls for identifying those in the general population with highly penetrant mutations that strongly predispose to serious but actionable conditions for purposes of prevention. Already there are laboratories marketing such tests to individuals throughout the US. The prospect of applying genomics in the public health setting is exciting - but many important questions remain to be answered. Such questions range from determining unbiased estimates of penetrance for well-studied disease genes, assessing patient understanding of the results of such screening and ultimately determining the clinical utility and costs of implementing public health genomics.
