Responsiveness of Arab Women in Israel to Genetic Screening Tests Prior to/during Pregnancy

Abstract

Hereditary morbidity is a severe health problem in the Muslim Arab society in Israel. There are populations where the prevalence of the Mendelian type hereditary diseases is 1 in 4 or 5 residents (Al Aqeel, 2007). One of the reasons for this is the high prevalence of relation marriage, which as of 2009 accounted for 24% of all marriages (Na’amnih et al., 2015). Despite this high prevalence, responsiveness to performing hereditary screening tests in Israel is very low among Arab women. For example, in performing Fragile X screening tests, only 9.1% of Arab women reported having performed the test, compared to 52% of Jewish women (Romano-Zlicha & Shochat, 2011).