Most US adults say they'd want to know whether they carried a gene variant that made them predisposed to developing an incurable disease, the Associated Press reports. It polled 1,109 adults in conjunction with NORC Center for Public Affairs Research about genetic testing.
While 17 percent of those polled said they had already undergone genetic testing, 52 percent of those who hadn't said they were interested in pursuing testing. Often, the AP says, people said they were motivated to do so to learn more about their ancestry, but also about their health risks.
According to the poll, about 60 percent of people said they would want to know if their genetic makeup made them more likely to develop a currently incurable disease. That percentage, the AP adds, is even higher among people under the age of 30: 78 percent of that age group said they'd want to know. One motivating factor for that group to seek testing, it says, is to learn whether they might pass disease risks on to their children.
In addition, the AP reports that most people think genetic tests are "somewhat reliable," but that less than half consider them "very or extremely reliable."