Abstract
Optimal health care delivery requires an understanding of genetic diversity and its associated risks. Population genomics is a rapidly emerging field that will yield such knowledge. As we are entering the genomic era, the need to develop policies and strategies integrating genetic determinants of health into medical services, health promotion and disease prevention is becoming increasingly important, perhaps inevitable. To this end, the Quebec Network of Applied Genetic Medicine (RMGA) supports a multidisciplinary and integrative research strategy which combines Quebec’s expertise in population and community genetics. The present article briefly describes two projects developed with a view to foster such strategy. The ECOGENE-21 project is designed to develop and evaluate resources and strategies for integrating and transferring new knowledge of the human genome to individuals, families and communities. ECOGENE-21 will be capitalizing on another project called CART@GENE, which is generating a combined genetic and demographic map containing information on allelic variation in the subpopulations of Quebec. These two projects are complementary and will be integrated with the ultimate goal of transferring knowledge gained from basic research, to promote health improvement and disease prevention.