Family Health Matters: From accepted wisdom to public health impact
Family health history(FHH) is a risk factor for many health conditions and a gateway to early interventions. However the use of FHH has often been limited in appropriately referring health consumers to specialist genetic services. In 2006, The Centre for Genetics Education is developing a media campaign to raise public awareness of FHH and encourage it's collection.
Development has been informed by stakeholder consultations and several qualitative discussion groups with both General Practitioners(GPs) and health consumers. This paper reports upon these consultations and the development of the FHH campaign.
Consultations explored stakeholder’s perspectives of FHH, the opportunities and barriers to raising public awareness and the benefits and risks such a campaign raises.
GPs expressed strong concerns that focusing upon very general FHH messages might raise unnecessary health consumer anxiety. Other concerns expressed included pressures upon consultation times, circumstances where little is known about parentage and the difficulties in communicating complex messages about health risk. A campaign focussed on a few key conditions was viewed more positively. GPs also requested clinical guidelines and educational resources for health consumers.
Health consumers appeared familiar with the principle of FHH and viewed it's promotion favourably. However discussing certain aspects of FHH, especially around cancer, was seen to be difficult and sensitive. A common theme was that promoting family discussions and the active collection of FHH would be too confronting for many health consumers. Consumers suggested a need for positive messages rather than those which raised fears. Key to the creditability of media messages was how the message was delivered and by whom.
Further campaign development will be enabled by the forthcoming inclusion of a module in an ongoing public health survey in NSW. This data will provide a baseline for the evaluation of the campaign's success.