Overview
Genetic cancer risk assessment (GCRA) uses personal and family history to identify those at elevated cancer risk and guide appropriate screening and prevention interventions. Identifying patients with elevated personal and family cancer risk helps to improve cancer outcomes by providing testing and treatment strategies as early as possible and can help improve equity and reduce disparities in care especially among minoritized populations historically underrepresented in genetic screening and testing programs. However, obtaining personal and family history can be time-consuming and difficult to integrate into a busy clinical practice. In addition, many existing screening tools which focus on identifying women with BRCA1&2-associated hereditary breast and ovarian cancer syndrome do not effectively capture men and individuals at risk for Lynch syndrome, which has a population prevalence higher than BRCA1 and BRCA2. In response, we propose to develop an electronic health record (EHR)-based tool to capture personal and family cancer history conveniently, which aligns with national guidelines and DHS Expected Practices, optimized for identification of at-risk women and men for the major hereditary cancer syndromes.
This project aligns with several DHS Strategic Initiatives, leverages existing DHS clinical and informatics infrastructure including eConsult and DHS EHR (i.e., ORCHID/Oracle) and expands on the success of the hereditary cancer questionnaire and screening program in place in the women’s health clinics at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center (OVMC) to improve equitable access to genetic cancer risk assessment among underrepresented communities in LA DHS.