The road to good health starts with a single step.
This week, 23andMe is helping you get started on that journey with the launch of a beta feature called My Health Action Plan. In it, you’ll find actions to take to be proactive about your health, personalized to your genetic results and survey answers.
My Health Action Plan is personalized based on your genetic Health Predispositions,* and other personal information such as your age, gender, weight, ethnicity and responses to specific survey questions.
Getting Personal
My Health Action Plan pulls your personal information together and then draws its recommendations from published clinical guidelines. Those guidelines come from the likes of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes for Health, the American Heart Association, and the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Beyond the personalized recommendations, general preventive recommendations are provided to all customers with access to My Health Action Plan. Some of those recommendations might include screening for common cancers, and scheduling flu shots and annual check-ups. (You can see our white paper on the standards and methods for the health recommendations here.)
The Next Step
The tool is a direct result of what our customers have been asking for. It will gradually become available to all 23andMe Health + Ancestry Service customers in the coming weeks.
“We frequently hear from customers who turn to 23andMe for suggestions on what to do once they receive their 23andMe reports,” said Jessie Inchauspe, Product Lead on the project. “The beta release of My Health Action Plan is part of a concerted effort to empower customers with actionable next steps to take control of their future health.”
The recommendations include suggestions such as talking to your doctor or making specific diet changes, keeping up to date with your eye exam or colonoscopy schedules. These recommendations are specific to a customer’s results, as well as age, ethnicity and gender. So, for example, if a customer’s genetic health risk report indicates an increased risk for Age-Related Macular Degeneration* (AMD), the customers might see recommendations like getting UVA and UVB blocking sunglasses or suggestions for an “eye-healthy diet.”
Along with those suggestions, the customer’s checklist might include a quick assessment to look at whether he or she has additional risk factors like family history for AMD or high blood pressure. It’s important to note that none of the recommendations should be used to replace a visit to a primary care physician.
But My Health Action Plan isn’t just for customers who have an increased genetic predisposition identified in a 23andMe report. It’s useful for all Health + Ancestry Service customers who all get a checklist of genetic-based recommendations and suggestions to help maintain good health at different stages in their life.
Over time, as we hear back from customers, we expect to make adjustments and improvements to My Health Action Plan. We will add in new types of information and recommendations. But this beta release offers customers a chance to see personalized recommendations on what actions they can take next after receiving their genetic results.
Personalize Health Recommendations
This initial release of My Health Action Plan is part of 23andMe’s continued push to create personalized health recommendations our customers can benefit from. Most recently, we collaborated with Lark Health, the leader in chronic disease prevention and management using AI, to offer a digital health coach app our customers could use to help them meet their health and weight loss goals. Before that, in 2017 we launched a first of its kind Genetic Weight Report that among other things, provided insight into which lifestyle factors might have the most significant impact on a person’s weight.
This push into personalized health recommendations is also core to our mission of empowering consumers by helping them access, understand, and benefit from the human genome. Customers benefit from having information they can use to be more proactive about their health.
We will be rolling out the My Health Action Plan beta to 23andMe Health + Ancestry Service customers at no additional cost over the coming weeks within the Health tab of their account. Not yet a customer? Find out more about 23andMe’s Health + Ancestry service here.
*The 23andMe PGS test health predisposition reports include both reports that meet US FDA requirements for genetic health risks and the 23andMe Type 2 Diabetes health predisposition report which is based on 23andMe research and has not been reviewed by the FDA. The test uses qualitative genotyping to detect select clinically relevant variants in the genomic DNA of adults from saliva for the purpose of reporting and interpreting genetic health risks. It is not intended to diagnose any disease. Your ethnicity may affect the relevance of each report and how your genetic health risk results are interpreted. Each genetic health risk report describes if a person has variants associated with a higher risk of developing a disease, but does not describe a person’s overall risk of developing the disease. The test is not intended to tell you anything about your current state of health, or to be used to make medical decisions, including whether or not you should take a medication, how much of a medication you should take, or determine any treatment. For important information and limitations regarding each genetic health risk report, visit 23andme.com/test-info/.