Family History
Your family history includes health information about you and your close relatives.
Family history is an important risk factor for problems like heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer.
A risk factor is anything that increases your chance of getting a disease.
The reason a family history can help predict risk is that families share their genes, as well as other factors that affect health, like environment, lifestyles and habits.
Having a family member with a disease raises your risk, but it does not mean that you will definitely get it.
Realizing that you are at risk gives you a chance to reduce that risk by following a healthier lifestyle and getting tested as needed.
You can get started by talking to your relatives about their health.
Draw a family tree and add the health information. Having copies of medical records and death certificates is also helpful.
Family Issues
There are many different kinds of families. Some have two parents, while others have a single parent.
Sometimes there is no parent and grandparents raise grandchildren. Some children live in foster families, adoptive families, or in stepfamilies.
Families are much more than groups of people who share the same genes or the same address.
They should be a source of support and encouragement. This does not mean that everyone gets along all the time.
Conflicts are a part of family life. Many issues can lead to conflict, such as illness, disability, addiction, job loss, school difficulties and marital problems.
Listening to each other and working to resolve conflicts are important in strengthening the family.
Individuals make up a family. In order to operationalize this individual relative importance concept we measure and utilize the individual welfare evaluations.
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