Information Needs in the Precision Medicine Era: How Genetics Home Reference Can Help

Precision medicine focuses on understanding individual variability in disease prevention, care, and treatment. The Precision Medicine Initiative, launched by President Obama in early 2015, aims to bring this approach to all areas of health care. However, few consumer-friendly resources exist for the public to learn about precision medicine and the conditions that could be affected by this approach to care. Genetics Home Reference, a website from the US National Library of Medicine, seeks to support precision medicine education by providing the public with summaries of genetic conditions and their associated genes, as well as information about issues related to precision medicine such as disease risk and pharmacogenomics. With the advance of precision medicine, consumer-focused resources like Genetics Home Reference can be foundational in providing context for public understanding of the increasing amount of data that will become available.