Precision medicine is rapidly advancing. Precision public health could be next

Rapid advances in personalized medicine have sparked interest in another new idea: precision public health.

Essentially, it’s the thought that if doctors could pinpoint populations with genetic vulnerabilities — like those prone to obesity, depression, or cancer — they might be able to treat those diseases sooner, slow their progression, or even prevent them altogether. It could be a more effective preventive medicine tactic than the blanket approaches used right now.

“We are treating to the mean effect,” Donna Arnett, a researcher and the dean of the University of Kentucky College of Public Health, said in a talk Tuesday hosted by the Boston University School of Public Health. “We have to think just beyond the mean.”

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