Assortative mating and within-spouse pair comparisons.

Spousal comparisons have been proposed as a design that can both reduce confounding and estimate effects of the shared adulthood environment. However, assortative mating, the process by which individuals select phenotypically (dis)similar mates, could distort associations when comparing spouses. We...

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Autores principales: Laurence J Howe, Thomas Battram, Tim T Morris, Fernando P Hartwig, Gibran Hemani, Neil M Davies, George Davey Smith
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Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2021
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Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/a59e1fe04d53417ba906c1ee77c34894
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spelling oai:doaj.org-article:a59e1fe04d53417ba906c1ee77c348942021-12-02T20:03:16ZAssortative mating and within-spouse pair comparisons.1553-73901553-740410.1371/journal.pgen.1009883https://doaj.org/article/a59e1fe04d53417ba906c1ee77c348942021-11-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1009883https://doaj.org/toc/1553-7390https://doaj.org/toc/1553-7404Spousal comparisons have been proposed as a design that can both reduce confounding and estimate effects of the shared adulthood environment. However, assortative mating, the process by which individuals select phenotypically (dis)similar mates, could distort associations when comparing spouses. We evaluated the use of spousal comparisons, as in the within-spouse pair (WSP) model, for aetiological research such as genetic association studies. We demonstrated that the WSP model can reduce confounding but may be susceptible to collider bias arising from conditioning on assorted spouse pairs. Analyses using UK Biobank spouse pairs found that WSP genetic association estimates were smaller than estimates from random pairs for height, educational attainment, and BMI variants. Within-sibling pair estimates, robust to demographic and parental effects, were also smaller than random pair estimates for height and educational attainment, but not for BMI. WSP models, like other within-family models, may reduce confounding from demographic factors in genetic association estimates, and so could be useful for triangulating evidence across study designs to assess the robustness of findings. However, WSP estimates should be interpreted with caution due to potential collider bias.Laurence J HoweThomas BattramTim T MorrisFernando P HartwigGibran HemaniNeil M DaviesGeorge Davey SmithPublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleGeneticsQH426-470ENPLoS Genetics, Vol 17, Iss 11, p e1009883 (2021)
institution DOAJ
collection DOAJ
language EN
topic Genetics
QH426-470
spellingShingle Genetics
QH426-470
Laurence J Howe
Thomas Battram
Tim T Morris
Fernando P Hartwig
Gibran Hemani
Neil M Davies
George Davey Smith
Assortative mating and within-spouse pair comparisons.
description Spousal comparisons have been proposed as a design that can both reduce confounding and estimate effects of the shared adulthood environment. However, assortative mating, the process by which individuals select phenotypically (dis)similar mates, could distort associations when comparing spouses. We evaluated the use of spousal comparisons, as in the within-spouse pair (WSP) model, for aetiological research such as genetic association studies. We demonstrated that the WSP model can reduce confounding but may be susceptible to collider bias arising from conditioning on assorted spouse pairs. Analyses using UK Biobank spouse pairs found that WSP genetic association estimates were smaller than estimates from random pairs for height, educational attainment, and BMI variants. Within-sibling pair estimates, robust to demographic and parental effects, were also smaller than random pair estimates for height and educational attainment, but not for BMI. WSP models, like other within-family models, may reduce confounding from demographic factors in genetic association estimates, and so could be useful for triangulating evidence across study designs to assess the robustness of findings. However, WSP estimates should be interpreted with caution due to potential collider bias.
format article
author Laurence J Howe
Thomas Battram
Tim T Morris
Fernando P Hartwig
Gibran Hemani
Neil M Davies
George Davey Smith
author_facet Laurence J Howe
Thomas Battram
Tim T Morris
Fernando P Hartwig
Gibran Hemani
Neil M Davies
George Davey Smith
author_sort Laurence J Howe
title Assortative mating and within-spouse pair comparisons.
title_short Assortative mating and within-spouse pair comparisons.
title_full Assortative mating and within-spouse pair comparisons.
title_fullStr Assortative mating and within-spouse pair comparisons.
title_full_unstemmed Assortative mating and within-spouse pair comparisons.
title_sort assortative mating and within-spouse pair comparisons.
publisher Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publishDate 2021
url https://doaj.org/article/a59e1fe04d53417ba906c1ee77c34894
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