PROJECT NARRATIVE Investigative genetic genealogy, a technique used by law enforcement to generate leads in criminal cases through searches of genetic genealogy databases, raises important privacy concerns for database participants and their families. This project will measure public preferences related to law enforcement participation in genetic genealogy databases and develop best practices for investigative genetic genealogy that operationalize these preferences by engaging experts and relevant constituencies.
Clarke and colleagues created this measure of support of science and technology (SST) for use in a study that assessed willingness to pay for expanded carrier screening. The measure is a set of 10 yes or no questions that assesses trust in medicine, importance of carrier status results, and willingness to share test results with clinicians.
Mainous and colleagues report the development and validation of the 12-item Trust in Medical Resesearchers Scale. This scale is designed to be self-administered. Several scale items assess concerns about research participation that may be unique to populations with documented mistrust in medicine. It could be used to assess barriers to participation in research and inform recruitment strategies. Item descriptions are available in Table 1 of the linked publication.
Hall and colleagues report the development and validation of 12-item survey and a short form (4-item) survey designed to measure trust in medical researchers. Final scale items are available in Table 4 of the linked publication.
This survey asks participants to supply demographic information (including educational level, household income, and race), rate their familiarity with precision medicine terms, indicate their attitudes to precision medicine, identify sources of medical information and potential barriers to participation in research, and complete a measure of trust in research and researchers. The survey is available in Table 1 and in the supporting information of the linked publication.
Prenatal screening and testing technologies using genetic methods are rapidly expanding, offering increasing amounts of genetic information about the fetus. However, research shows that women from underserved populations are less likely to receive or accept prenatal genetic services, leading to discordant birth outcomes. We propose to explore the barriers to access and acceptance of prenatal genetic care among women from underserved populations.
This project is designed to improve our understanding of when to best communicate parental genetic risk information to minor children by assessing the minor?s readiness to receive such information from the perspective of the parent and the minor child themselves. We will interview parent-child pairs who have already communicated about parental genetic risk information to richly characterize experiences with, perspectives on, and implications of the communication event(s).
PROJECT NARRATIVE Human genome editing technologies are evolving rapidly and with this evolution brings questions regarding governance and the ethical implications involved in applying these technologies. The He Jiankui controversy is the primary example of the potential exploitation of HGE and the importance of self-governance. This project will be the first case-study to evaluate self-governance in the realm of human genome editing technologies, the findings of which will be validated through a survey of HGE scientists.
Project Narrative Studies suggest that distrust is a major barrier for participation of minorities in Precision Medicine Research (PMR), though no study has examined the sources of (dis)trust and factors affecting views on trustworthiness of PMR among people with disabilities. This study proposes to engage with people with mobility, visual and hearing disabilities?the most common conditions in the U.S.?across racial/ethnic communities and with translational genomic researchers, the leaders in PMR, to close this gap.