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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: Howe, Laurence J., Battram, Thomas, Morris, Tim T., Hartwig, Fernando P., Hemani, Gibran, Davies, Neil M., Smith, George Davey
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8594845/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34735433
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1009883
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author Howe, Laurence J.
Battram, Thomas
Morris, Tim T.
Hartwig, Fernando P.
Hemani, Gibran
Davies, Neil M.
Smith, George Davey
author_facet Howe, Laurence J.
Battram, Thomas
Morris, Tim T.
Hartwig, Fernando P.
Hemani, Gibran
Davies, Neil M.
Smith, George Davey
author_sort Howe, Laurence J.
collection PubMed
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.
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spelling pubmed-85948452021-11-17 Assortative mating and within-spouse pair comparisons Howe, Laurence J. Battram, Thomas Morris, Tim T. Hartwig, Fernando P. Hemani, Gibran Davies, Neil M. Smith, George Davey PLoS Genet Research Article 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. Public Library of Science 2021-11-04 /pmc/articles/PMC8594845/ /pubmed/34735433 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1009883 Text en © 2021 Howe et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Howe, Laurence J.
Battram, Thomas
Morris, Tim T.
Hartwig, Fernando P.
Hemani, Gibran
Davies, Neil M.
Smith, George Davey
Assortative mating and within-spouse pair comparisons
title 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_short Assortative mating and within-spouse pair comparisons
title_sort assortative mating and within-spouse pair comparisons
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8594845/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34735433
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1009883
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