Attitudes toward genomics and precision medicine

PURPOSE: This paper reports on a novel measure, attitudes toward genomics and precision medicine (AGPM), which evaluates attitudes toward activities such as genetic testing, collecting information on lifestyle, and genome editing – activities necessary to achieve the goals of precision medicine. DISCUSSION: The AGPM will be useful for researchers who want to explore attitudes toward genomics and precision medicine. The association of concerns about precision medicine activities with demographic variables such as religion and politics, as well as higher levels of education, suggests that further education on genomic and precision activities alone is unlikely to shift AGPM scores significantly. METHODS: We wrote items to represent psychological and health benefits of precision medicine activities, and concerns about privacy, social justice, harm to embryos, and interfering with nature. We validated the measure through factor analysis of its structure, and testing associations with trust in the health information system and demographic variables such as age, sex, education, and religion. RESULTS: The AGPM had excellent alpha reliability (.92) and demonstrated good convergent validity with existing measures. Variables most strongly associated with higher levels of concern with precision medicine activities included: regular religious practice, republican political leanings, and higher levels of education.