Public health genetics: An emerging interdisciplinary field for the post-genomic era

Public health genetics is an exciting interdisciplinary area that brings al l the public health sciences to bear on the emerging challenge of interpret ing the medical and public health significance of genetic variation within populations. Sequencing of the human genome will generate an avalanche of g enetic information to be linked with information about microbial, chemical, and physical exposures; nutrition, metabolism, lifestyle behaviors, and me dications. The public health genetics mini-symposium in this volume include s articles dealing with educational innovations, host-pathogen interactions in infectious diseases, nutrition/genetic interactions in cancers, and pop ulation screening for hemochromatosis. Additional topics addressed here are ecogenetics and risk assessment, the genetics of unhealthful behaviors, an d ethical and policy issues. Finally, a set of principles for community-bas ed health research in populations is presented as a public health-oriented counterpart to the principle of autonomy and the practice of informed conse nt that have become key elements of ethics in medical care and medical rese arch with individuals.