How to read a disease page
Every disease page follows the same layout. Here is what each part tells you, top to bottom, and how to read the small labels without a genetics background. New to the terms? See the glossary.
The anatomy of a page
- Breadcrumbs and title
- These show where you are. Each page covers one disease at the population level. It is not a personal risk estimate.
- TL;DR box
- On the flagship pages, a three-sentence plain version: what the disease is, why it matters in Loudoun, and what the genetics say. Start here.
- Disease Overview
- A fuller description of the disease and why it is relevant locally.
- Genetic Architecture Summary
- A table of the genes and variants linked to the disease. Each row lists the gene, the variant (an rsID like rs7216389), the GWAS p-value, the type of evidence, and a strength score. Below it you may find a heritability estimate and notes on polygenic risk scores.
- Exposure Modifier Panel
- Environmental factors that change risk. The direction column reads amplify (raises risk), buffer (lowers risk), or unknown. Each row also carries a strength value, a confidence badge, and a short mechanism hypothesis.
- Population Equity Notes
- The honest caveats. Most GWAS data is European-ancestry, so findings can transfer poorly to Loudoun's South Asian, Black, and Latino residents. This section states the ancestry breakdown, transferability, and known data gaps.
- Tissue Context
- Which body tissues the disease's genes act in, ranked by how relevant each one is.
- Mechanism Brief Links
- Deeper write-ups of specific mechanisms behind the disease, where they exist.
- Visualizations
- The Risk Shift by Exposure Stratum chart shows genetic liability expressing more strongly as an exposure rises, measured across the whole population. Its caption says it plainly: population-level data only, not a prediction for you. A tissue relevance chart sits alongside it.
- Evidence, limitations, and references
- The receipts. An evidence-and-limitations box states what the page can and cannot support, and the reference list gives the full source behind every claim.
Reading the labels quickly
- Confidence
- High means several independent methods agree. Medium means one main line of evidence plus support. Low means a single hint, flagged rather than settled.
- Strength
- How strong the support is, on a 0 to 1 scale. High confidence with only modest strength is normal and fine.
- Direction
- Amplify raises risk, buffer lowers it, unknown means the direction is unsettled. Across the site this maps to a color convention: red raises, green lowers, gray is unknown.
One rule holds for the whole page: everything here describes populations, not individuals, and it is for learning, not diagnosis.
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