ARU Social Science Crating Family Tree Critial Thinking Questions – Description
Creating a Family Health Tree
A family health tree is a diagram of your family’s health history over several generations. As such, it can provide important clues to the genes you have inherited from your parents, grandparents, and ancestors. It can also give you an opportunity to think about the context in which your family members lived and how that may have affected their health. Constructing a family health tree has three broad steps: (1) mapping the family structure, (2) recording family information, and (3) exploring family relationships. Refer to the model provided in Figure 1.8 in your text for a sample health tree. Use the online tool at My Family Health Portrait: A Tool from the Surgeon General to map out your own family’s health tree. You can complete the tree online and print out a paper copy. The tool will provide detailed instructions to walk you through the process.
Once you have gathered all the information, analyze your family health tree by completing the Critical Thinking Questions in Part 2. You may want to share your family health tree with your siblings and other family members. Depending on what you find, you may want to review your family health tree with your health provider. They may recommend that you modify certain lifestyle behaviors (such as diet or exercise), have a particular screening test (such as an early test for cancer), or visit a genetic counselor. You may want your family health tree to become part of your medical file for future reference.
part 2 Creating a Family Health Tree
CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS
1. What are your family’s strengths? Consider such things as longevity, fitness, mental well-being, etc. What individual, interpersonal, community, or policy factors may have contributed to the strengths? Consider where, when, and how different generations of your family lived. How might this have influenced their health?
2. Are there patterns of disease or illness in your family? Do certain diseases appear frequently? Does the pattern suggest a possible genetic link? What lifestyle factors may have contributed to illness in your family? Again, consider how the environment in which your relatives lived might have contributed to illness.
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