Attitudes towards and sociodemographic determinants of genetic test usage in the USA; data from the Health Information National Trend Survey, 2020

Abstract

Genetic testing is increasingly used -given the potential benefits for consumers -that include diagnostic or predictive health information, guidance for therapeutics, and identification of ancestry or biological filiation (Franceschini et al., 2018;Phillips et al., 2018;Roberts & Middleton, 2017). Perceptions on genetic tests, mainly direct-to-consumer genetic tests (DTC), however, remain equivocal based on issues such as the lack of comprehensive oversight by government (U. S. Food and Drug Administration, 2019;Guerrini et al., 2020;Phillips et al., 2018), inadequate scientific evidence on such tests, and limited utility of genetic tests to support effective healthcare decisions (Pitini et al., 2018).A qualitative study of interviews with 15 participants by Marzulla and colleagues indicated the potential impact of DTC for their health; albeit, they expressed concerns about understanding