NursingWritten assignmentFamily health

DNP 810 Week 3: the family history assignment

The third requirement is the one with a real answer available: whether this tool could actually be used in your practice, which depends on time, literacy and what happens to the output.

Aug 15, 2026

Editorial process

Last reviewed · August 15, 2026

Written by

Aaron Bishop

MA, Education

assignment interpretation and research-methods coaching across disciplines

Reviewed by

Dr. Nathan Cole

PhD, Rhetoric & Composition

Argumentation and thesis development

On this page

Interpret the task
Assignment instructions
Deliverables
Proposed outline
Research plan
Reference shortlist
Final review

Three deliverables, and the third is about your practice

Complete the tool first and let the output drive the paper, because all three requirements depend on what it actually produced. The heredity patterns section should describe what you found rather than what patterns exist in principle: which conditions cluster, across how many generations, on which side of the family, and at what ages of onset. Early onset is the strongest single signal and worth flagging explicitly — breast cancer at thirty-eight means something different from breast cancer at seventy-eight. Where a pattern suggests a mode of inheritance, name it and say what the evidence for it is; where it does not, say that the pattern is consistent with multifactorial risk, which is a legitimate finding rather than a failure to find one. Where the tool surfaces nothing at all, say so and treat the absence as its own finding, since a clean three-generation history is itself information a clinician can use.

The transmission risk section requires you to be careful about what you can honestly claim. For a suspected single-gene pattern you can state a recurrence risk; for clustering without a confirmed variant you can say risk is elevated relative to population baseline and that quantifying it would need genetic evaluation. Make clear which of the two applies. Then the feasibility question, which is the doctoral part. It is asking for an implementation judgement, so answer it with the constraints: the tool takes real time a patient may not have in a clinic slot, it requires literacy and internet access, it depends on family information many patients do not have, and its output does not import into your record — so somebody has to act on a printout. Feasible with conditions is almost always the honest answer, and naming the conditions is what makes it a proposal.

Likely learning objectives

Inferred from the brief — check these against your own rubric.

01
Read a completed family history for heredity patterns rather than for content.
02
State transmission risk at the level the evidence supports.
03
Judge a tool's feasibility against real practice constraints.
04
Distinguish a suspected inheritance pattern from a confirmed one.

Assignment instructionsQuoted verbatim

Read the full question

Review every instruction before using the planning guidance that follows.

Details: Taking a family history is an important step in determining current and future health needs and education. There are many tools available to complete a comprehensive health history. The Surgeon General’s Family Health History tool is part of the larger Family Health History Initiative that encourages people to talk about and write down health issues that seem to run in the family, bringing a larger focus on this important issue. This assignment allows the learner to use the tool and become familiar with this initiative. General Guidelines: Use the following information to ensure successful completion of the assignment: This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion. Doctoral learners are required to use APA style for their writing assignments. The APA Style Guide is located in the Student Success Center. This assignment requires that at least two additional scholarly research sources related to this topic, and at least one in-text citation from each source be included. You are required to submit this assignment to LopesWrite. Please refer to the directions in the Student Success Center. Use the Surgeon General’s Family History Tool at (http://www.hhs.gov/familyhistory/portrait/index.html) to complete this assignment. DNP 810 Week 3 Family History Directions: Use the Surgeon General’s Family History Tool (http://www.hhs.gov/familyhistory/portrait/index.html) to document your own family history. Designate a proband for the pedigree with a disease or condition of interest. Write a 750-1,000 word summary of your findings. Include the following information: Discussion of the heredity patterns discovered. Evaluate the risk of transmission to other/new family members. Propose the feasibility of using this tool in your own practice. Portfolio Practice Hours: Practice immersion assignments are based on your current course objectives, and are intended to be application-based learning using your real-world practice setting. These assignments earn practice immersion hours, and are indicated in the assignment by a Portfolio Practice Hours statement which reminds you, the student, to enter in a corresponding case log in Typhon. Actual clock hours are entered, but the average hours associated with each practice immersion assignment is 10. You are required to complete your assignment using real-world application. Real-world application requires the use of evidence-based data, contemporary theories, and concepts presented in the course. The culmination of your assignment must present a viable application in a current practice setting. For more information on parameters for practice immersion hours, please refer to DNP resources in the DC Network. To earn portfolio practice hours, enter the following after the references section of your paper: Practice Hours Completion Statement DNP-810 I, (INSERT NAME), verify that I have completed (NUMBER OF) clock hours in association with the goals and objectives for this assignment. I have also tracked said practice hours in the Typhon Student Tracking System for verification purposes and will be sure that all approvals are in place from my faculty and practice mentor. Family History

Turn the brief into deliverables

01
A completed Surgeon General's family health history.
02
The heredity patterns actually discovered, with ages of onset.
03
An evaluation of transmission risk to other or new family members.
04
A feasibility proposal with named conditions.
05
Two scholarly sources cited in text, and the practice hours statement.

Patterns, transmission risk, then feasibility

What the tool produced

Report the family history you entered and the output it generated.

Heredity patterns

Identify clustering, generations affected and ages of onset.

Transmission risk

Evaluate risk to other and new family members at the level the evidence supports.

Feasibility in your practice

Judge whether the tool could be used, and under what conditions.

What the tool is for, and what it misses

Recommended databases

Surgeon General's My Family Health Portrait
MedlinePlus Genetics
National Human Genome Research Institute
CINAHL

Search sequence

1.
Complete the tool with a real family history before writing anything.
2.
Search family history collection AND primary care for the feasibility evidence.
3.
Check what recurrence risk figures exist for the pattern you identified.
4.
Find out whether your own record system has any family history field at all.

Reference shortlist

These are authoritative starting points, not a ready-made bibliography. A qualified reviewer must confirm that each source fits the assignment and supports the claim beside which it is cited.

Nothing here is cleared for citation until you have read it.

01
Why is it important to know my family health history?: MedlinePlus Genetics
MedlinePlus, U.S. National Library of Medicine · 2024
Why family history is collected and what it can establish, which is the standard the tool is judged against.
02
Pedigree
National Human Genome Research Institute · 2024
The notation underlying the tool's output, useful for reading the patterns correctly.
03
What are complex or multifactorial disorders?: MedlinePlus Genetics
MedlinePlus, U.S. National Library of Medicine · 2024
What clustering without a confirmed variant can and cannot support, which bounds the risk claim.
04
Genetic Disorders
National Human Genome Research Institute · 2024
Single-gene patterns and their recurrence risks, for the cases where a quantitative claim is defensible.
05
Health Literacy Universal Precautions Toolkit
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality · 2024
Health literacy constraints, which is the strongest evidence base for the feasibility section.

Review before submission

Common mistakes

Describing heredity patterns in general rather than the ones the tool showed.
Quoting a recurrence risk when no variant has been confirmed.
Answering the feasibility question with an endorsement rather than conditions.
Ignoring that the tool's output does not enter the clinical record.
Omitting ages of onset, which is where most of the signal is.

Submission checklist

Did you complete the tool before writing?
Are ages of onset included in the pattern discussion?
Is the transmission risk claim proportionate to the evidence?
Does the feasibility section name real constraints?
Is the practice hours statement present?

Use this guide to plan and review your own work. Follow your institution's rules and read our academic-integrity policy.