PHG Foundation sets out policy priorities for personalised prevention in Europe

The PHG Foundation, based at the University of Cambridge, has published a policy briefing identifying priorities for implementing personalised prevention programmes across Europe. The briefing addresses both EU-level and national-government audiences, setting out the governance, infrastructure, and equity considerations that policymakers would need to address in order to move genomics-informed prevention from research settings into broader public health use.

Personalised prevention in this context refers to the use of genomic and other biological data to stratify population-level disease risk and to inform the design of prevention strategies — an area of active policy interest in several European health systems, including in the UK through NHS England's genomics programme and in Europe through the European Health Data Space initiative.

The briefing is notable for its emphasis on the policy architecture required to support implementation, including data governance frameworks, interoperability between national registries, and equitable access across populations. The PHG Foundation has previously contributed to UK and European genomics policy debates, including on polygenic risk scores, newborn genomic screening, and cancer prevention.

The full text of the briefing is available on the PHG Foundation website. Genetic Current readers in research, health policy, and genetic counselling roles are likely to find the document a useful overview of the current European policy landscape.