Only 15% of our health is determined by the healthcare we receive, the rest are the social determinants of health: environment, economic stability, access to care, education and community resources. Paying attention to that 85% is imperative, and precision medicine aims to take targeted genetic and molecular information and consider it in tandem with data about our environmental exposures and lifestyle choices. Integration of the smallest building blocks with the macro environment is exactly the direction in which medicine should be moving, and President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative is a needed step forward. But getting there will take some new habits, a new funding model and new technologies.

Read more at Morning Consult.