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Why Does the Shift from "Personalized Medicine" to "Precision Health" and "Wellness Genomics" Matter?
Eric T Juengst1, Michelle L McGowan2
1A professor of social medicine and genetics, a co-investigator at the Center for Genomics and Society, and the director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill.
Abstract:
Efforts to conceptualize the application of human genomics to health care have displayed an evolving set of translational research goals. Under personalized genomic medicine, the aim was to individualize treatment and empower patients to take more responsibility for their own health. With the rise of interest in expert interpretation of multifactorial risk stratification, emphasis shifted to giving clinicians better tools and more authority to use them under the rubric of precision medicine. The statistical nature of risk stratification, in turn, led to the movement's importing public health goals and expanding its scope to precision prevention at the population level. Today, the confluence of precision medicine and precision prevention in precision health is leading to wellness genomics aimed at achieving goals beyond health care entirely. Each of these reorientations suggests important ethical questions for the medical community.