Democratizing DNA-based health risk scores Hutch-led consortium receives $9.8M grant to improve genetic risk prediction for cardiovascular disease in racially and ethnically diverse populations December 10, 2020 • By Diane Mapes / Fred Hutch News Service Photo illustration by Getty Images For more than a decade, scientists with the PAGE consortium (Population Architecture using Genomics and Epidemiology) have been focused on developing polygenic risk scores — those statistical estimates of a person’s risk for disease based on their genes — that will accurately predict risk in all major racial and ethnic groups in the U.S. This is crucial since the Human Genome Project — and a lot of the of genetic research done since — has focused almost exclusively on people of European ancestry. As a result, polygenic risk scores designed to help clinicians and the general population gauge their susceptibility to various diseases aren’t as accurate as they could be, particularly when it comes to groups with non-European ancestry, such as African Americans, Latinos and Indigenous populations.