Manatū Hauora, the Ministry of Health, asked for feedback on its proposed Long-term insights briefing topic. These briefings are designed to get us thinking about the future and the suggestion was to look at precision health. Precision health is a growing field that aims to use emerging technology and all available information (such as an individual’s genome, current biophysical measures, and environment) to predict, prevent, diagnose, and treat disease more precisely.
RACS agreed precision health is a worthwhile topic but warns it needs to be explored in a culturally safe manner. It recommended focusing on population health rather than individual genomics so social determinants, which are key drivers of health inequities, can be taken into account.
The RACS submission also raised concerns about the finite financial resources for healthcare and warned precision health should not be considered at the expense of other essential health interventions.