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The Florida Department of Health works to protect, promote, and improve the health of all people in Florida through integrated state, county, and community efforts.
National Family Health History Day
| November 27, 2014 All Day |
Event Contact
Contact: Florida Health
health@flhealth.gov850-245-4444
Each year since 2004, the U.S. Surgeon General has declared Thanksgiving to be National Family History Day. Over the holiday or at other times when families gather, the U.S. Surgeon General encourages Americans to talk about, and to write down, the health problems that seem to run in their family. Learning about their family's health history may help ensure a longer, healthier future together.
U.S. Surgeon General's Family Health History Initiative
Health care professionals have known for a long time that common diseases—heart disease, cancer, and diabetes —and rare diseases—like hemophilia, cystic fibrosis, and sickle cell anemia —can run in families. If one generation of a family has high blood pressure, it is not unusual for the next generation to have similarly high blood pressure. Tracing the illnesses suffered by your parents, grandparents, and other blood relatives can help your doctor predict the disorders to which you may be at risk and take action to keep you and your family healthy.
To help focus attention on the importance of family history, the U.S. Surgeon General, in cooperation with other agencies with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has launched a national public health campaign, called the Surgeon General's Family History Initiative, to encourage all American families to learn more about their family health history.
My Family Health Portrait Tool
The U.S. Surgeon General has created a new computerized tool to help make it fun and easy for anyone to create a sophisticated portrait of their family's health. The Web-based tool helps users organize family history information and then print it out for presentation to their family doctor. In addition, the tool helps users save their family history information to their own computer and even share family history information with other family members. Access the My Family Health Portrait Web tool at https://familyhistory.hhs.gov/.
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