Family history is one of the simplest pieces of health information available to individuals and publichealth systems, yet it is often overlooked. A family can share genes, behaviours, food practices, living environments, social conditions and patterns of health-care use. As a result, diseases that appear to “run in the family” are not always caused by a single inherited mutation. Many common conditions— including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, several cancers, asthma and some mental -health conditions—reflect a mixture of genetic susceptibility and environmental or behavioural influences.
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Aquib et al. (2026) studied this question.
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