Plan for 2011: Gathering Your Family Health History

Seven of the top 10 diseases that cause death each year are hereditary, including Alzheimer's, cancer, heart disease and stroke. Do you know if you are at risk? You probably should, as the risk for many of these diseases can be avoided or minimized by understanding your family medical history and taking appropriate action. And what better way to start off the new year that by contacting family members and gathering the facts. (Okay, it might not be the best way to start off the year, but it might just save your life down the line.)

One new company, Inherited Health, can make your job easier. Inherited Health is an online health resource that incorporates family social networking and disease risk assessment to facilitate conversations amongst families and their doctors. Effectively the first social network that can save your life, Inherited Health offers a secure place to collect, store and update your family health history with other family members.

Founders Lee Essner (a former senior executive at WeddingChannel.com) and Jordanna Joaquina (a board certified genetic counselor) have worked to develop a proprietary risk analysis system. Entering health information can provide each family member with a personalized view of the hereditary diseases they are more like to develop, pass down to their children, and most importantly, it suggests ways to prevent these diseases.

“Most people don’t know where to start when it comes to collecting and using family health history,” says Ms. Joaquina. Through a series of basic questions, the Inherited Health family health history tool gathers users' medical and familial history, then analyzes that information to provide tailored guidelines about reducing individual risk for inherited disease. Users can easily share the information with other family members, or print it for medical consultations. It took me about 20 minutes to complete the history, but I am intimately familiar with my family’s health history and I have a small family.

There is a basic package, which is free to users and provides:

• Secure collection, archival and updates of your family health history,
• Health summary of all diseases in your family to share with your relatives and doctors
• Invitations to family to view, supplement and improve your health history profile

Their complete package, available for $19.95, provides everything the basic package does, plus:

• Data on which diseases you and your children are more likely to inherit  
• Ways you can lower your disease risks  
• Updated disease risk assessment each time your family health history profile is updated

The basic package is just a summary of what you put in, which is then stored at Inherited Health for future reference and use. The real value in this process is in the complete package, w hich you can purchase at the time of input, or later on, after gathering more information.