Thompson Owen
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Bolton Hall 878, Milwaukee, WI 53201, USA.
J Health Econ. 2014 May;35:132-46. doi: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2014.02.003. Epub 2014 Mar 11.
This paper uses a sample of adoptees to study the genetic mechanisms underlying intergenerational associations in chronic health conditions. I begin by estimating baseline intergenerational models with a sample of approximately 125,000 parent-child pairs, and find that children with a parent who has a specific chronic health condition are at least 100% more likely to have the same condition themselves. To assess the role of genetic mechanisms in generating these strong correlations, I estimate models using a sample of approximately 2400 adoptees, and find that genetic transmission accounts for only 20-30% of the baseline associations. As falsification tests, I repeat this exercise using health measures with externally established levels of genetic determination (height and chicken pox), and the results suggest that comparisons of biological and adopted children are a valid method of isolating genetic effects in this sample. Finally, to corroborate these adoptee-based estimates, I examine health correlations among monozygotic twins, which provide an upper bound estimate of genetic influences, and find a similarly modest role for genetic transmission. I conclude that intergenerational health transmission is an important hindrance to overall socioeconomic mobility, but that the majority of transmission occurs through environmental factors or gene-environment interactions, leaving scope for interventions to effectively mitigate health persistence.
本文使用领养者样本研究慢性健康状况中代际关联背后的遗传机制。我首先用大约125,000对亲子样本估计基线代际模型，发现父母患有特定慢性健康状况的孩子自身患同样疾病的可能性至少高出100%。为评估遗传机制在产生这些强相关性中的作用，我用大约2400名领养者样本估计模型，发现遗传传递仅占基线关联的20 - 30%。作为证伪检验，我使用具有外部确定的遗传决定水平的健康指标（身高和水痘）重复此操作，结果表明比较亲生孩子和领养孩子是在该样本中分离遗传效应的有效方法。最后，为证实这些基于领养者的估计，我研究了同卵双胞胎之间的健康相关性，其提供了遗传影响的上限估计，并发现遗传传递的作用同样不大。我得出结论，代际健康传递是整体社会经济流动性的一个重要障碍，但大多数传递是通过环境因素或基因 - 环境相互作用发生的，这为有效减轻健康持续性的干预措施留下了空间。
