Misinformation and distrust often prevent individuals from minority communities to seek adequate healthcare, including genetic services. Immigrants appear to be further burdened by factors that negatively impact their health outcomes and little is known about their experience with genetic services. We sought to identify attitudes and perception of genetic services in one immigrant group, the Somali community of Minnesota and to establish a culturally informed framework for caring for members. A qualitative study comprised of 11 semi‐structured key informant interviews was conducted and analyzed using a thematic approach. Main themes emerged from the analysis fell within one of four major topics: (a) Somali views and perspective on genetics and healthcare, (b) barriers to uptake of genetic services, (c) facilitators to uptake of genetic services, and (d) perspective on genetic service delivery subtypes. Somali views and perspective on genetics are often framed by religious and cultural values. These values, at times, conflicted with those common in the American healthcare system. Supports for different genetic service delivery subtypes also varied, ranging from little to no support in prenatal screening to generally positive support for pharmacogenetic testing. Future studies should prioritize topics with support and ways to better provide genetic counseling services within the Somali community.

The law applicable to genomics in the United States is currently in transition and under debate. The rapid evolution of the science, burgeoning clinical research, and growing clinical application pose serious challenges for federal and state law. Although there has been some empirical work in this area, this is the first paper to survey and interview key scientific and legal stakeholders in the field of genomics to help ground identification of the most important legal problems that must be solved to successfully integrate genomics into clinical care. The respondents in this study identified a wide range of interconnected issues, focusing specifically on the need for clear guidelines about how to use these data, fear of liability for those who use these data, and the need to protect patients from use of this information particularly by insurers, while endorsing data sharing. Developing legal strategies to support appropriate use of genomics now and in the future clearly will require making trade-offs, taking into account the full complexity of this legal ecosystem.