Informing Public Health Approaches to Obesity and Smoking with Genome-Wide Association Studies: Genetic Epidemiology Affirms the Importance of Early Prevention

Rapid advances in technology and scientific methods stimulated by the sequencing of the human genome have yielded discoveries that begin to uncover the genetic roots of common chronic health conditions. The implications of these discoveries for population health science remain unclear. Three questions central to translating genetic discoveries to population health research are (1) What are the magnitudes of risks that can be predicted using genetic information? (2) Do genetics provide new information over and above family history? And (3) When in the life course do genetic risks become manifest? We address these questions for the cases of obesity and smoking. We use data from the Dunedin Study, a 4-decade longitudinal study of a population-representative birth cohort, along with public-access GWAS databases from studies of cardiometabolic disease and addiction. Results reveal novel insights into the meaning of genetic risk for population health research and bring genetics to bear on policy approaches to intervention in public health.