Rev. Harold Skipper and his wife, Shelia, (seated centered and right of center) held their annual New Year’s Day Dinner at their home for family, friends and members of Temple of Emmanuel Baptist Church, 1333 Railton, where Rev. Skipper is pastor. Also pictured:  front: Leatrice Jackson, Taiwo Stanback, Jaylen Payne, and Heloise Simelton; back row: Bishop Jerry L. Jackson, pastor of Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church, Jeannette G. Stanback, Jasmine Keith, Michael Holland, Doris Blaine holding “Prince,” and Arlando Jones, youth minister at St. John Baptist Church. (Photo by Earl Stanback)

If you could help save the life of your child someday, would you be willing to pull them back from a speeding car or push them out of the path of a speeding bullet?

Many African American parents have the opportunity to protect their children’s health and life in significant and meaningful ways, but too often they overlook the easiest and least expensive steps.

Family medical histories can help doctors predict the risk factors children have for diseases, and develop appropriate preventive programs. Yet many families do not take time to gather information regarding family risk factors for diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, breast and prostate cancers, high blood pressure, Sickle Cell Anemia, and glaucoma, a condition that is the leading cause of blindness in African Americans.

The Centers for Disease Control reports that its analysis of 2004 HealthStyles Survey found that 96.3% of respondents believe their family history is important for their own health, but less than 30 percent have actively collected health information from their relatives to develop a family history.

The agency called for targeted public health efforts to help individuals collect family history information so they can share it with health-care providers, and for new programs to educate providers and help them to interpret and apply this information effectively.

When you visit the doctor and he or she asks questions regarding your mother or family’s medical history, these questions are extremely important. Every, patient should visit the doctor with a list containing recent diagnosis for close family members. For example, if you are diagnosed as having breast cancer, notify your sisters, mother, cousins and aunts immediately. Their doctor will want to know your age, as well as any special factors that may elevate risks for your relatives.

“Although family history can identify persons at increased risk for disease, its potential as a screening tool has not been realized in clinical and public health practice, the CDC says. Additional information can be found on its Web site. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwR/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5344a5.htm

“While the history is a critical tool, an observational study of primary care physicians indicated that family histories were discussed about half the time at new visits and 22% of the time during follow-up visits, “ according to the CDC. “Moreover, the CDC says the average duration of the family history discussion was 2.5 minutes and focused more often on psychosocial concerns than on other health matters. “

To promote the need to gather and collect family health information,  the U.S. Surgeon General has joined with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and other federal agencies to  host  the U.S. Surgeon General’s Family History Initiative.

As part of the program, the Surgeon General has created a computerized tool to help families create a sophisticated portrait of their health. The tool, called “My Family Health Portrait” is a web-enabled program that runs on any computer that is connected to the web and running an up-to-date version of any major Internet browser.

The program guides users to organize health  information and then print it out for presentation to the family doctor. In addition, users can save their family history information to their own computer and  share it with other family members. The tool can be accessed at https://familyhistory.hhs.gov/.

Or, if you prefer, you have the option of downloading the My Family Health Portrait software directly onto your computer by going to : http://www.hhs.gov/familyhistory/download.html.

The tools are free and available to all users. No user information is saved on any computer of the U.S. federal government. (See the Privacy and Security Policy on the tool for more information.)