A cross-cultural comparison of the impact of family health information on health behaviour.

Participating families will be randomly allocated to the intervention or control condition. Halfway through the trial, the Intervention group will receive an education booklet containing their own family health history pedigree with health history of breast cancer, colorectal cancer, heart disease and diabetes highlighted. Information for the family health history pedigree is provided by the parent generation in each family – at baseline, each enrolled parent is encouraged to talk with family members and then complete a questionnaire to identify their first and second degree relatives, their age (if living) and to indicate if each of these family members has ever received a diagnosis for heart disease, diabetes, breast cancer or colorectal cancer (and if so, the age at diagnosis). This information is entered into Progeny software program, which produces a pedigree diagram of listed family members, with any disease status highlighted. Intervention families receive this information three months after baseline, control families receive the information after they have completed the study. The family is sent the booklet in the post and participants identify themselves as being at either average or above average risk for a chronic disease. They are followed up a few days' later by phone call to discuss the information sent. The booklet also contains information about familial and environmental risk factors, and screening and prevention strategies. The time between baseline and follow-up is six months. Therefore, for intervention families, the time between baseline and intervention is three months, and the time between intervention and follow-up is three months. At follow-up, intervention families are asked, via questionnaire, if they could determine their disease risk using the booklet and pedigree sent to them. They are also asked if they shared this information with any other family members, and if so, with whom they shared the information. In addition, following the trial, a subsample of 18 intervention families will be interviewed to determine efficacy of the health information booklet and pedigree to encourage change to more healthful behaviours.