National Family Health History Day is November 24, 2022. Why do we bring your attention to this day?
Our Knox County Community Health Center treats patients every day and one thing we find is not everyone knows their family health history. This history is an important part of your health journey. Knowing the diseases and risk factors in your family helps you when you talk with a doctor, understand symptoms for a disease, or monitor your health during a yearly check-up. Finding and treating diseases early is the best step for you to stay healthy.
Why should you care about your family health history?
- Some family members may have died young or died not knowing what health issues they had. These could be genetic and passed on to other blood relatives, putting you at risk.
- Some diseases run in families, like diabetes, heart issues, cancer, high blood pressure, and arthritis. Knowing these are in your family provides doctors with information to treat you more effectively.
- Genetic factors run in families and can affect your lifespan.
- You may be able to get medical screenings at earlier ages if you have a family history of a disease, like cancer, heart disease or high blood pressure.
How to know your health history!
- Write down what you learn during family gatherings - share it with your other family members, children, and anyone else that it would benefit from knowing the information.
- Ask your family members about their health, find out how blood relatives have died or what illness and diseases they had (including great-great grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles, etc.). You should try to trace back three generations and know how family members died, as well as what chronic illnesses they had.
Take the time to talk with your family and share what you learn with your medical providers and mitigate your risk factors before a disease is evident. Knowledge of your family health history could help you live a longer, healthier life!
As always, we are here to help you on your health journey.