The Risk Evaluation and Education for Alzheimer's Disease (REVEAL) Study is an ongoing, multi-site research project that is designed to evaluate the psychological and behavioral impact of genetic risk assessment with disclosure of APOE, a susceptibility polymorphism for Alzheimer's disease. In the first funding cycle of the REVEAL Study, we developed a novel risk assessment methodology and conducted a randomized clinical trial in which 162 first degree relatives of patients with AD received genetic risk assessment with or without APOE disclosure.

Understanding the social factors that influence the translation of genetic information to improved human health is a major objective of genomics research (Grand Challenges II-5,II-6 and III-1). One current approach for applying genomics to public health is to raise social awareness of family history as an independent, major risk factor for common diseases of adulthood in order to motivate appropriate preventive actions.