Archives: News

Posted October 26, 2018

Over 70 researchers, 23andMe, COGENT, and SSGAC came together to conduct one of the largest genetic studies on educational attainment using a sample of 1.1 million individuals. Their work identified 1,271 lead SNPs that are related to educational attainment and was published in Nature Genetics. Additionally, the polygenic scores developed from these SNPs explain 11-13% of the variance in educational attainment.

Findings from this study are monumental but interpreting the findings can be difficult for those not familiar with genomic work. For this reason SSGAC published an FAQ page dedicated to what the results mean and how they relate to education. Essentially, these results provide insight into educational attainment as a complex behavior. Social science and health researchers can utilize these polygenic scores in order to account for genetic variation in a similar fashion as socio-demographic variables are used. The Washington Post has already highlighted research using these polygenic scores to understand how wealth is associated with educational attainment.

Resources

For more information about this study and what the results mean, see the FAQ published by SSGAC.

The study was featured in NYTimes and The Atlantic.

Lead Authors:

• James J. Lee, University of Minnesota
• Robbee Wedow, University of Colorado, Boulder
• Aysu Okbay, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Corresponding authors:

• Peter M. Visscher, University of Queensland
• Daniel J. Benjamin, University of Southern California

View the abstract or download the complete article from Nature Genetics.

Lee JJ, Wedow R, Okbay A, et al. Gene discovery and polygenic prediction from a genome-wide association study of educational attainment in 1.1 million individuals. Nature Genetics. 2018.

Posted October 17, 2018

Research consistently shows that members of the LGBTQ community face health disparities compared to their cisgender, heterosexual counterparts. We need to know how we can better measure these disparities and through which specific pathways these disparities are generated. Three Add Health based studies published this year focus on these questions.

Lamb, Nogg, Rooney, & Blashill challenged past studies which found a negative association between religious activity and hypertension by introducing sexual orientation as an independent variable. As the authors hypothesized, sexual orientation moderated the association between religious activity and hypertension. More religious activity was linked to lower blood pressure among heterosexuals, but homosexual respondents with higher levels of religious activity also had higher blood pressure. In other words, for sexual minorities, religiosity may be a risk factor for hypertension.

Oi & Wilkinson delved into the relationship between same-sex experiences (SSE) and suicidal ideation. Their study focused on whether suicidal ideations varied when considering the time of first SSE. As expected, the results showed that individuals with SSE are at a higher risk of suicidal ideation compared to individuals without any SSE. Additionally, their study showed that sexual minority women who had their first-time SSE in adulthood had a slower rate of decline in suicidal ideation compared to sexual minority women who had SSEs in adolescence and adulthood. Women with SSE in adulthood only experience higher levels of suicidal ideation for a longer period in their lives compared to other groups.

Conron, Goldberg, & Halpern studied the difference in socioeconomic status (SES) by sexual orientation. Overall, sexual minorities faced more socioeconomic inequities. Among males, sexual minorities were more likely to be college graduates than heterosexuals but were also more likely to have lower incomes. The authors argue that SES should be considered as a pathway for sexual orientation health inequalities.

Add Health Data

All of these studies utilize the rich contextual data available in Add Health to contribute to sexual minority research. A 5-year, NIH funded project hopes to further LGBTQ research by adding new data to Add Health from a subset of sexual and gender minorities. Co-principle investigator, Carolyn Halpern said, “These unique data will provide an unprecedented opportunity for Add Health Users to study the intersection of sexual orientation, gender identity, socioeconomic factors and health in a population-based sample across the life course.” Read more about the study: Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity, Socioeconomic Status, and Health across the Life Course.

Information about this and other future data releases will be distributed via the Add Health listserv. To subscribe, email Add Health and request that you be added to the list.

Quote from Gillings School of Global Public Health News.

Resources

Lamb KM, Nogg KA, Rooney BM, Blashill AJ. Organizational religious activity, hypertension, and sexual orientation: Results from a nationally representative sample. Annals of Behavioral Medicine. 2018.

Oi K, Wilkinson L. Trajectories of suicidal ideation from adolescence to adulthood: Does the history of same-sex experience matter? Archives of Sexual Behavior. 2018.

Conron KJ, Goldberg SK, Halpern CT. Sexual orientation and sex differences in socioeconomic status: a population-based investigation in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. 2018.

Previous studies have identified common risk factors for unhealthy weight control behaviors among adolescents including family dysfunction, adverse childhood events, and school connectedness. A new study, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, examined whether these risk factors still applied when looking at weight and sex.

Findings found that commonly recognized risk factors were associated with unhealthy weight control behaviors for underweight and normal weight females but not their male counterparts or overweight/obese adolescents. For example, none of the family risk factors were associated with unhealthy behaviors among males. Results also showed that childhood physical abuse is associated with unhealthy behaviors only in underweight or normal weight females and overweight/obese males.

The findings challenge current screening and intervention practices for unhealthy weight control behaviors as they may only be applicable to underweight or normal weight females. Further research needs to examine other risk factors that are specific for overweight/obese females and males across weight groups, respectively.

These results add to the trend of Add Health data which call for a change in public health practices such as how providers screen for disordered eating behaviors and raising awareness of hypertension among young adults.

View the abstract or download the complete article from the Journal of Adolescent Health: Nagata J.M., Garber A.K., Tabler J.L., Murray S.B., Bibbins-Domingo K. (2018). Differential risk factors for unhealthy weight control behaviors by sex and weight status among U.S. adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Health, 63(3), 334-341.

Authors

Jason M. Nagata, University of California	Stuart B. Murray, University of California
Andrea K. Garber, University of California	Kristen Bibbins-Domingo, University of California
Jennifer L. Tabler, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

Previous studies have found a genetic association with factors of social mobility, such as educational attainment and economic success. In a study published by PNAS, researchers examine the association further to understand potential biological and/or environmental pathways.

By replicating analyses across five different longitudinal studies, including Add Health, researchers were able to argue that the relationship is genuine. They found that that a person’s education-linked genetics consistently predicted a change in their social mobility, even after accounting for social origins. Additionally, results demonstrated that a mother’s genetics predicted the child’s social mobility which suggests that there may be a gene-environment correlation.

Findings from this study support that genetics is just one of several mechanisms through which social mobility is passed across generations. As more genetic data become available and are incorporated into research on social mobility, programs and policies can begin changing children’s environments to reflect the advantages already present among those children who inherit more education-linked genetics. Dan Belsky, the study’s first author, told The News & Observer:

“The goal of our research is to use genetics to better understand how human attainment is achieved, and ultimately helping find interventions on our environment than help everyone reach success. … If it turns out these kids do better in school because they have parents who expose them earlier to more intellectual stimulation or challenge them in particular ways, then we can think of practices to promote this kind of parenting.”

Resources

This article was featured in The News & Observer: Do your genes hold the secret to your success? Duke and UNC researchers explain.

View the abstract or download the complete article from PNAS.

For more information on genetic data from Add Health that were used in this study see our Polygenic Scores User Guide.

Authors

• Daniel W. Belsky, Social Science Research Institute, Duke University
• Benjamin W. Domingue, Stanford University
• Robbee Wedow, University of Colorado – Boulder
• Louise Arseneault, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience, King’s College London
• Jason D Boardman, Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado – Boulder
• Avshalom Caspi, Duke University, King’s College London
• Dalton Conley, Princeton University
• Jason M. Fletcher, Center for Demography of Health and Aging, University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Jeremy Freese, Stanford University
• Pamela Herd, University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Terrie E. Moffitt, Duke University, King’s College London
• Richie Poulton, University of Otago
• Kamil Sicinski, Center for Demography of Health and Aging, University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Jasmin Wertz, Duke University
• Kathleen Mullan Harris, Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) is excited to announce the release of the following new datasets:

• Wave V Sample 1: Data from Wave V Sample 1 respondents who completed the survey between March 2016 and March 2017. This file is a partial release of data from 3,872 of the Wave V Sample 1 respondents.
• Add Health Parent Study (2015-2017): The parent data files contain social, demographic, behavioral, and health data collected in 2015-2017 on a probability sample of Add Health parents who were originally interviewed in 1995 during Wave I.
• Polygenic Scores: Constructed polygenic scores (PGS) for 30 phenotypes are available for Add Health respondents who provided archival saliva samples for genetic testing at Wave IV.
• Ambient Air Pollutants Data: These files include 365 daily exposure estimates of ambient air pollutants (individual pollutants/particulate matter/gases) for each Add Health study participant in Wave IV.
• Wave III Academic Transcript Social Studies and Civic Coursework (ATRCVC) Data: The Wave III ATRCVC data is a course-by-student-level file that includes academic transcript data related to social studies and civic coursework.
• Wave IV Modified Retail Food Environment (mRFEI) Data: This file includes the mRFEI for each respondent based on their Wave IV residential location.

Codebooks can be downloaded online.  To request any of these new restricted-use datasets, current contract users can complete the order form.  New users will need to complete the Restricted-Use Data contract using the CPC Data Portal.

General questions about contracts? Check out our FAQs or email addhealth_contracts@unc.edu.

 

Different generations experienced changing laws, policies, and public perceptions regarding smoking and education. For example, a 1964 Surgeon General’s Report describing the health hazards of smoking was issued and led to a decrease in tobacco use nationwide. Researchers working on a study recently published in American Sociological Review wanted to look at whether these types of changes in environment, determined by when a person was born, changes the relationship between educational attainment, smoking, and genetics.

This study used two datasets: The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), whose participants were born between 1974 and 1983; and the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), whose participants were born between 1920 and 1959. Results suggested that the genetic relationship between educational attainment and smoking was stronger among those participants who were born later. Though the study was supported by replication using the UK Biobank, which is a larger dataset than Add Health and HRS, the results were underpowered and could not prove a causal pathway.

This study exemplifies the growing field of sociogenomics and discusses how genetic research can be utilized as larger datasets which include genotyped data become available. Add Health contributes by disseminating genetic data through contractual data agreements.

Authors:

• Robbee Wedow, University of Colorado Boulder
• Meghan Zacher, Harvard University
• Brooke M. Huibregtse, University of Colorado Boulder
• Kathleen Mullan Harris, Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Benjamin W. Domingue, Stanford University
• Jason D. Boardman, University of Colorado Boulder

 

View the abstract or download the complete article from American Sociological Review.

Wedow, R., Zacher, M., Huibregtse, B. M., Harris, K. M., Domingue, B. W., & Boardman, J. D. (2018). Education, smoking, and cohort change: Forwarding a multidimensional theory of the environmental moderation of genetic effects. American Sociological Review, 83(4), 802-832. doi:10.1177/0003122418785368

 

One fifth of overweight or obese young adults engage in disordered eating behaviors, but most have never been diagnosed with any eating disorder. This finding, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health and reported in US News and World Report, comes as a result of analysis done by researchers at the University of California San Francisco and the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, using Add Health data.

Disordered eating behaviors measured during the Wave III interview (respondents aged 18-26) include binge eating, vomiting, fasting or skipping meals, or using laxatives or diuretics to lose weight. Of respondents who were overweight or obese at Wave III, over one fifth said they had engaged in disordered eating behaviors; however, less than 2% of these respondents had been diagnosed with an eating disorder. What’s more, respondents who reported these behaviors at Wave III were more likely to have diabetes and have gained weight at Wave IV, underscoring the need for these behaviors to not go unchecked.

In contrast, those who were normal or underweight were twice as likely to be diagnosed with an eating disorder. According to Dr. Jason Nagata – the study’s first author – in a University news release:

…[T]his may reflect under-recognition that these conditions exist in heavier young adults …”Clinicians and parents should be aware that eating disorders occur in people who are overweight and obese. They should ask if and how young people are trying to lose weight and discourage unsafe practices, which can lead to severe illness and hospitalization.”

This finding is another in a trend of Add Health data demonstrating that many diseases and health conditions go undiagnosed. Previously, findings published in the journal Biodemography and Social Biology showed that few people with hypertension actually know that they have it.

Read the original abstract here: Nagata, J. M., Garber, A. K., Tabler, J., Murray, S. B., & Bibbins-Domingo, K. (March 14-17, 2018). Disordered eating behaviors among overweight/obese young adults and future cardiometabolic risk in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. Journal of Adolescent Health, 62(2), S17-S18. Paper presented at the Global Adolescent Health Equity, Seattle, WA.