In reading my list mail this evening I came across an interesting site at https://familyhistory.hhs.gov/. The site is titled My Family Health Portrait and it is a tool provided by the US Surgeon General.

My Family Health Portrait allows you to create a personalized family health history report from any computer with an Internet connection and an up-to-date web browser.

The Information you provide creates a drawing of your family tree and a chart of your family health history. Both the chart and the drawing can be printed and shared with your family members or your healthcare professional. Used in consultation with your healthcare professional, your family health history can help you review your family's health history and develop disease prevention strategies that are right for you.

Since this is a web based program no additional software needs to be downloaded or installed. The health information you provide is stored only on your computer and not on a US government server. You own the file and can choose what to do with it at any time.

A few of the things you can do with the program is edit or update your health information any time, save your health information to a disk and take it with you if you are using a public machine, decide with whom you want to share your health information, and decided how to share your health information with others to name a few.

If you do not know all the details about everyone in your family, the health information you do enter into the tool will be sufficient and useful. When used in consultation with a doctor or a healthcare professional, My Family Health Portrait can be a valuable tool for assessing your risk for disease and identifying strategies to prevent disease and is part of the US Surgeon General’s Family History Initiative.
Par of this initiative is National Family History Day. Thanksgiving 2006 was the third annual National Family History Day. It is during the holidays that many families gather together and the Surgeon General is encouraging Americans to talk about and to write down the health problems that seem to run in their family. The Surgeon General’s position is that learning about their family health history is way to help ensure a longer, healthier future together.

For more information on the US Surgeon General’s Family History Initiative visit http://www.hhs.gov/familyhistory/.