Public health in the genomic era: a global issue
A new report has been released into the impact of genomic medicine and technologies on global public health.
It follows a meeting invited international experts held at Ickworth House, Suffolk, UK in May 2010.
The full report from the meeting has now been published by the PHG Foundation and as an article in the journal Genetics in Medicine.
The experts concluded that genomic medicine was very much an international issue, recommending that appropriate genetic health services and research should be fostered in low and middle-income countries (LMIC).
They also called for increased global collaboration, and ongoing efforts to integrate genomics into public health research and practice, including creation of research infrastructure for generating an evidence base for genomic medicine.
A publicly available, transparent evidence base was agreed to be necessary to bridge the gap between emerging new knowledge and technologies and their application for health.
Dr Tikki Pang, Director of Research Policy & Cooperation for the World Health Organisation (WHO) observed: "Genomics is relevant and important to all countries and populations…This Report will help clinicians, public health practitioners and relevant decision-makers frame and focus their strategies and approaches".
The expert group and summit was co-organised by four partners: the PHG Foundation (Cambridge, UK), the Centre for Bioethics (Indiana University, USA), the Centre of Genomics and Policy (McGill University, Canada) and The Kids for Child Health Research (University of Western Australia). It included experts in various fields from Argentina, Australia, Canada, Nigeria, the Netherlands, France, Italy, the USA and the UK.
The full report, Public health in an era of genomic and personalised medicine, including recommendations, is freely available from the PHG Foundation website: www.phgfoundation.org
Article: Burke W et al. Genet. Med. 15 Nov 2010, doi: 10.1097/GIM.0b013e3182011222