Genomic research has the potential to enhance disease prevention and management by uncovering the specific DNA sequences that can leave patients vulnerable to major ailments like cancer and heart disease long before their symptoms appear. It also has the potential to provide the early screening and detection needed to overcome pervasive ethnic/racial disparities that often leave patients from disadvantaged communities with higher disease mortality rates. Genetic screening of underserved patients is a major obstacle that can certainly save lives.
To take one example: African American men are 20% more likely than non-Hispanic White men to die from all cancers, in large part due to lower screening rates and less prompt and effective treatment, studies show. The disparities for stomach and prostate cancer and heart disease are even higher, for much the same reason. Public health professionals are attempting to address these persistent disparities through stronger disease prevention messaging and special health screening initiatives that target African Americans in poorer medically underserved communities.
And so are some enterprising genomic researchers in Alabama – where 27% of the population is African American, more than twice the national average. Thanks to a partnership between the Alabama Genomic Health Initiaitive (AGHI) and three University of Alabama at Birmingham health care clinics that serve low-income African Americans, patients at the clinics can enroll in a free program that tests their genetic make-up to better understand their propensity to develop cancer and heart disease.
The goal is not just better research. Patients identified with a higher propensity to to develop cancer or heart disease also qualify to participate in a special pharmacogenetic treatment plan that can identify the proper medications and dosage levels for each at-risk patient that can help stave off the two diseases.
“This study has a real-world impact on communities that have been left out or missing from genetic research in the past,” AGHI program director Renie Moss says. “Historically, genetic data banks have predominantly consisted of data from persons of European ancestry, which leaves out a significant part of our diverse population in Alabama. AGHI is helping to fill in those gaps to not only improve health outcomes for these historically underrepresented communities but understand how genetics factors into these communities’ health outcomes.”
Erin Delaney, one of the first primary care doctors to offer enrollment in the AGHI program, anticipates enormous treatment benefits for her predominantly African American patients suffering disproportionately high rates of cancer and heart disease.
“This partnership will help bring cutting-edge, precision medicine to patients where they are, help doctors provide more precise treatment recommendations, and help us all understand what genetic variants and pharmacogenetic findings may or may not mean in the real world and how they can affect patients,” Delaney says.
Interest in the genetic testing program has been growing rapidly. As of Nov. 4, 2022, more than 800 primary care patients from the three clinics have enrolled in the program, nearly two-thirds of them African American, Delaney notes.