Your family health history is a list of health conditions, diseases, mental illnesses, and the age and reason for death of your parents, grandparents, siblings, and children.
Tips & Links
Learn about your family health history to help you understand disease and health patterns in your family so that you can make positive changes in your health and lifestyle.
Learn More
- Know that your family health history can help to identify potential genetic risks for certain conditions, allowing you to take preventive measures or get early screenings.
- Learn about the screening tests that are recommended for you and your family.
- A complete family health history can guide your physician or specialist in making personalized treatment and prevention plans.
- Consider using your family history knowledge to guide your lifestyle choices.
- Learn about hereditary cancers from the BC Cancer Agency.
- Learn how to create a detailed family health history from Bayshore Home Health.
Things You Can Do
- Interview and research your family health history by contacting relatives and asking about any diagnoses, treatments, or health issues known to them.
- Be supportive of their right to privacy and confidentiality.
- Know that some health issues may have never been properly diagnosed and that genetic testing was not as readily available as it is now.
- Organize the information into a family health tree or chart, documenting key health issues and the ages at which they occurred, to identify any hereditary trends.
- Use your health profile to record for each person; their health conditions, age they were diagnosed, current age or age of their death, and the cause of death.
- Share your findings with your physician and/or specialist for suggested screening tests for yourself and/or your family members.
Tools & Videos
Categories: My Health Information, Senior
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