By Jennifer Bresnick
By combining historical immigration and socioeconomic data with information found in modern electronic health records, researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS) are taking a unique look at population health management and precision medicine during the American Society of Human Genetics 2015 Annual Meeting this week.
As healthcare providers gain a richer, more detailed understanding of the genetic roots of patients in certain close-knit neighborhoods, they may be able to more effectively target screenings and develop risk scores to improve population health, says study author Gillian Belbin, MS, a graduate student at the Icahn School. 
“New York City is an important point of entry and immigration, and has long been one of the major ‘melting pots’ of the world. The population structure there is complex and interesting from a variety of perspectives, including the genetic one,” she said in a press release.