Public knows no more about genetics than in 1990, study shows

Updated 1:00 PM May 19, 2003

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Public knows no more about genetics than in 1990, study shows

By Diane Swanbrow
News Service

Despite a decade of highly publicized advances in genetics, U.S. adults know no more about genetic testing than they did in 1990, according to a U-M study.

"The public needs to have more and better education about genetics," says Eleanor Singer, lead author of the study and a senior research scientist at the Institute for Social Research (ISR).

"The public needs to have more and better education about genetics."
—Eleanor Singer

For the study, Singer and ISR colleagues Toni Antonucci and John Van Hoewyk compared data from a random-digit-dialed national survey of 1,006 respondents conducted in 1990 with data from later national surveys, including a random-digit-dialed survey of 1,824 respondents conducted in 2000.

The topics included attitudes toward prenatal testing, abortion, genetic testing in the workplace, genetic testing for adult-onset untreatable diseases and a series of true-or-false statements that they used to construct an "accuracy index."

Comparing the number of accuracy-index questions answered correctly in 1990 and 2000, the researchers found that even after controlling for demographic characteristics of the respondents, including age and education, the proportion of questions answered correctly was significantly lower in 2000 than in 1990.

In 1990, for example, 58 percent of those surveyed correctly answered at least three out of five accuracy-index questions, compared to just 24 percent in 2000.

The questions included whether genetic testing can detect a tendency to develop certain types of cancer and depression; whether it can be used during pregnancy to find out if the baby or fetus will develop certain diseases; and whether gene therapy can be used to correct defects discovered through prenatal testing.

The following statement, part of the accuracy index, appeared in identical form in both the 1990 and 2000 surveys: "Genetic screening can be used in adults to predict whether a person will suffer a heart attack." Fifty-five percent of the adults surveyed in both years correctly said that the statement was false. "In other words," Singer says, "as measured by responses to this question, accuracy was not much better than chance in either year."

In addition to gauging the accuracy of public knowledge, the study compared how attitudes toward prenatal testing, preferences for abortion in case of fetal defect and attitudes toward genetic testing in the workplace had changed—or remained the same—over time.

In both 1990 and 2000, about two-thirds of respondents said that if they or their partner were pregnant, they would want to have prenatal testing to see if the baby had any serious genetic defects.

But attitudes toward abortion in case of fetal defect changed considerably over the 10-year period, Singer found, with a much smaller percentage reporting that they would have an abortion if a prenatal test showed a serious defect22 percent in 2000 compared to 32 percent in 1990.

Public knows no more about genetics than in 1990, study shows

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