title: Common genetic risk for melanoma encourages preventive behavior change.
abstract: There is currently great interest in using genetic risk estimates for common disease in personalized healthcare. Here we assess melanoma risk-related preventive behavioral change in the context of the Coriell Personalized Medicine Collaborative (CPMC). As part of on-going reporting activities within the project, participants received a personalized risk assessment including information related to their own self-reported family history of melanoma and a genetic risk variant showing a moderate effect size (1.7, 3.0 respectively for heterozygous and homozygous individuals). Participants who opted to view their report were sent an optional outcome survey assessing risk perception and behavioral change in the months that followed. Participants that report family history risk, genetic risk, or both risk factors for melanoma were significantly more likely to increase skin cancer preventive behaviors when compared to participants with neither risk factor (ORs = 2.04, 2.79, 4.06 and p-values = 0.02, 2.86 × 10-5, 4.67 × 10-5, respectively), and we found the relationship between risk information and behavior to be partially mediated by anxiety. Genomic risk assessments appear to encourage positive behavioral change in a manner that is complementary to family history risk information and therefore may represent a useful addition to standard of care for melanoma prevention.
authors.affiliation: United States Air Force Medical Services, 7700 Arlington Boulevard, Falls Church, VA 22042, USA. lori.diseati@us.af.mil.
authors.forename: Lori
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Diseati
authors.affiliation: Coriell Institute for Medical Research, 403 Haddon Ave, Camden, NJ 08103, USA. lscheinfeldt@coriell.org.
authors.forename: Laura B
authors.initials: LB
authors.lastname: Scheinfeldt
authors.affiliation: Coriell Institute for Medical Research, 403 Haddon Ave, Camden, NJ 08103, USA. rskasper@comcast.net.
authors.forename: Rachel S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Kasper
authors.affiliation: Coriell Institute for Medical Research, 403 Haddon Ave, Camden, NJ 08103, USA. rzhaoyang@coriell.org.
authors.forename: Ruixue
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Zhaoyang
authors.affiliation: Coriell Institute for Medical Research, 403 Haddon Ave, Camden, NJ 08103, USA. ngerry@coriell.org.
authors.forename: Neda
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Gharani
authors.affiliation: Coriell Institute for Medical Research, 403 Haddon Ave, Camden, NJ 08103, USA. tschmidlen@coriell.org.
authors.forename: Tara J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Schmidlen
authors.affiliation: Coriell Institute for Medical Research, 403 Haddon Ave, Camden, NJ 08103, USA. egordon@23andme.com.|Me, Inc., 1390 Shorebird Way, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA. egordon@23andme.com.
authors.forename: Erynn S
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Gordon
authors.affiliation: United States Air Force Medical Services, 7700 Arlington Boulevard, Falls Church, VA 22042, USA. cecili.sessions@us.af.mil.
authors.forename: Cecili K
authors.initials: CK
authors.lastname: Sessions
authors.affiliation: Coriell Institute for Medical Research, 403 Haddon Ave, Camden, NJ 08103, USA. sdelaney@coriell.org.
authors.forename: Susan K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Delaney
authors.affiliation: Coriell Institute for Medical Research, 403 Haddon Ave, Camden, NJ 08103, USA. jjarvis@coriell.org.
authors.forename: Joseph P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Jarvis
authors.affiliation: Coriell Institute for Medical Research, 403 Haddon Ave, Camden, NJ 08103, USA. ngerry@coriell.org.
authors.forename: Norman
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Gerry
authors.affiliation: Coriell Institute for Medical Research, 403 Haddon Ave, Camden, NJ 08103, USA. christman@coriell.org.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Christman