Identification of the process by which patients recall and UPDATE their subjective RISK assessments for various diseases to incorporate objective genetic risk information

Project RISK-UPDATE will support the reintegration of Dr Talya Miron-Shatz, after four years spent as post-doctoral research collaborator with Nobel Laureate Prof. Daniel Kahneman at Princeton University, in the USA. Dr Miron-Shatz’s new host institution is Ono Academic College, Israel, which has agreed to set up a new research centre to facilitate her proposed studies, which she will direct. In this project, the Researcher will produce a model of risk information processing in order to improve patients' ability to integrate risk information relating to genetic predisposition to diseases and conditions. The research will follow the path of risk estimates told to patients by a genetic counsellor, for two genetic illnesses: Alzheimer’s Disease and breast cancer. Patient recall of this estimate and perception of the risk will be analysed. Few studies have traced this process, and initial research indicates that information conveyed by geneticists and counsellors is often lost or distorted, and when this happens, patients retain assessments of greater risk. This may cause individuals to undergo unnecessary procedures to deal with risks which are perceived as greater than they really are. Two trends coincide to make this research timely and important: 1. genetic testing is becoming more widespread and cheaper; 2. increasingly, patients participate in decisions affecting their health, which, in the past, were the responsibility of doctors alone.
The core aim of this research will be to develop a model to enable prediction of when this phenomena will arise, and to quantify the extent of the difference between patients’ and health professionals’ perceptions of the genetic risk. Factor analysis, and quantitative content analysis methods will be applied to supplement the investigation. This model can then be used by geneticists and genetic counsellors to facilitate accurate recall and adoption of risk information by patients for a range of diseases and conditions.