  The prevalence of common chronic non-communicable diseases (CNCDs) far
overshadows the prevalence of both monogenic and infectious diseases combined.
All CNCDs, also called complex genetic diseases, have a heritable genetic
component that can be used for pre-symptomatic risk assessment. Common single
nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that tag risk haplotypes across the genome
currently account for a non-trivial portion of the germ-line genetic risk and
we will likely continue to identify the remaining missing heritability in the
form of rare variants, copy number variants and epigenetic modifications. Here,
we describe a novel measure for calculating the lifetime risk of a disease,
called the genetic composite index (GCI), and demonstrate its predictive value
as a clinical classifier. The GCI only considers summary statistics of the
effects of genetic variation and hence does not require the results of
large-scale studies simultaneously assessing multiple risk factors. Combining
GCI scores with environmental risk information provides an additional tool for
clinical decision-making. The GCI can be populated with heritable risk
information of any type, and thus represents a framework for CNCD
pre-symptomatic risk assessment that can be populated as additional risk
information is identified through next-generation technologies.
