Patent ID: 7951078

Claim:
A computerized method for determining the extent to which personal and family health histories play a role in developing a disease of interest in a particular subject, the method comprising: accessing, by a computer system, the particular subject's stored, personal and family health histories including a history of one of the group consisting of a) the disease of interest, b) indicator diseases, and c) indicator traits; and determining, by the computer system, the subject's assigned level of familial risk of the disease of interest by recognizing familial patterns of disease using a stored array of elements, wherein each element of the array gives a predetermined level of familial risk for the disease of interest corresponding to a different combination of a personal disease history scenario and a familial disease history scenario, wherein the predetermined level of risk was set based on having recognized familial patterns of disease, wherein said determining the subject's assigned level of familial risk of the disease of interest further comprises, indexing into the stored array of elements using a plurality of items taken from the subject's accessed personal and family health histories, to find one or more elements that match said plurality of items, wherein the items taken from the subject's accessed personal and family health histories include (a) whether any first- or second-degree relatives of the subject have developed the disease of interest, (b) whether any first- or second-degree relatives have developed an indicator disease, other than the disease of interest, associated with an increased risk of developing the disease of interest, and (c) for any first- or second-degree relative that developed the disease of interest or indicator disease, information comprising (i) an age of onset at which the disease of interest or indicator disease developed, (ii) a number of first-degree relatives of the subject that developed the disease of interest or indicator disease, and (iii) a number of second-degree relatives of the subject that developed the disease of interest or indicator disease.