The target population for the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center was all OU Medical School students and faculty, and ultimately, all healthcare providers and consumers across the state. In general, family health history is an extremely important concept for the medical students to understand. Many physicians do not collect family health histories and this needs to be changed within our medical community. The Does It Run In the Family? booklets provided the medical students with an opportunity to learn about inherited diseases and taking pedigrees. It also provided them with materials to share with their future patients that will help them in obtaining the correct information.

Prior to the project, medical students received a basic training in obtaining some family health history information from patients. As part of their evaluation, they were required to ask questions and, based on the responses generated, create a genogram documenting their findings. This genogram was not only limited in the range of family members included (parents, grandparents) but in the diseases included (usually only cancer, diabetes, heart disease and/or whatever heritable disorder the patient presented with).

The FHH training program implemented for this project attempted to extend the students’ awareness of the importance of FHH to patient care and increase the range of both relatives and disorders to be included in the genogram. The students were then asked to perform a subsequent analysis of patient FHH.

Data was collected before and after the booklets with supplemental lecture, and handouts were introduced to the medical school students to assess their knowledge and use of the family health history. The data was collected from the students’ patient profile papers. The student papers evaluated whether the student included and was able to generate a family health history that included the following eight elements: correct use of standard pedigree symbols; correct use of relationship lines; identification of the patient of interest; inclusion of three generations; identification of illness and ages of diagnostic; education level/history of learning disabilities; family members' ages; and age of death, when applicable.

The overall quality of the family health histories on the pre-booklets was fair. Strong points were the use of correct pedigree symbols and relationship lines. Weak points were an overall lack of information. Most students only included the patient, patient’s parents, and one set of grandparents. Also, information was not collected about ages, illnesses, causes of death, and educational levels. The majority of students were unable explain the importance of the family health history as it related to patient care

The overall quality improved after an introduction of the booklets with a classroom lectures and supplemental handouts. The students were more likely to include a full three generations and information about illnesses, ages, causes of death, and educational level. More students were able to identify the importance and included a complete family health history in their patient reports.

1,000 copies of each booklet were printed. Two workshops were held in which the booklets were distributed. 524 were distributed at the Family Health History Module, 79 were distributed at the Heartland Meeting, and the rest were used to collect Family Health History in the university’s Genetics Clinic.