The idea that some day we may be able to leverage personalized, genetic approaches to promote health and well-being has sparked interest from researchers, medical providers, and patients alike. For example, President Obama discussed the promise of tailored medical treatments and a “precision medicine” approach in his 2015 State of the Union address. This initiative, which includes the recruitment of a volunteer national research cohort, may help pave the way for clinicians to apply individualized treatments based on a patient’s biology, as guided by genetic information collected from saliva or blood in medical settings. Simultaneous to these biomedical efforts, we advocate that a quantitative genetic approach using naturalistic experimental designs such as those described in this article provides an alternative pathway to precision medicine.
