Environmental and lifestyle risk factors provide a piece of the risk assessment puzzle as well, but since they change over time and are often difficult to measure, they don’t provide all of the information. Lastly, genetic risk factors can be measured accurately and do not change over time. Since genetic data is personalized, this kind of risk assessment may provide additional incentive to change behavior. As more genetic risk factors are being identified, it is clear that their effects on disease risk are just as significant as the effects of environment and family history. To illustrate, cardiovascular diseases are the.
