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What can genes tell us about the relationship between education and health?

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  • Boardman, Jason D.
  • Domingue, Benjamin W.
  • Daw, Jonathan

Abstract

We use genome wide data from respondents of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to evaluate the possibility that common genetic influences are associated with education and three health outcomes: depression, self-rated health, and body mass index. We use a total of 1.7 million single nucleotide polymorphisms obtained from the Illumina HumanOmni2.5-4v1 chip from 4233 non-Hispanic white respondents to characterize genetic similarities among unrelated persons in the HRS. We then used the Genome Wide Complex Trait Analysis (GCTA) toolkit, to estimate univariate and bivariate heritability. We provide evidence that education (h2 = 0.33), BMI (h2 = 0.43), depression (h2 = 0.19), and self-rated health (h2 = 0.18) are all moderately heritable phenotypes. We also provide evidence that some of the correlation between depression and education as well as self-rated health and education is due to common genetic factors associated with one or both traits. We find no evidence that the correlation between education and BMI is influenced by common genetic factors.

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  • Boardman, Jason D. & Domingue, Benjamin W. & Daw, Jonathan, 2015. "What can genes tell us about the relationship between education and health?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 171-180.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:127:y:2015:i:c:p:171-180
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.08.001
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    Cited by:

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    2. Atticus Bolyard & Peter Savelyev, 2021. "Understanding the Educational Attainment Polygenic Score and its Interactions with SES in Determining Health in Young Adulthood," Working Papers 2021-026, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    3. Abdel Abdellaoui & Oana Borcan & Pierre Chiappori & David Hugh-Jones, 2022. "Trading Social Status for Genetics in Marriage Markets: Evidence from UK Biobank," University of East Anglia School of Economics Working Paper Series 2022-04, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    4. Yanwen Long & Changli Jia & Xiaoxia Luo & Yufeng Sun & Wenjing Zuo & Yibo Wu & Yunchou Wu & Ayidana Kaierdebieke & Zhi Lin, 2022. "The Impact of Higher Education on Health Literacy: A Comparative Study between Urban and Rural China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-16, September.
    5. McFarland, Michael J. & Wagner, Brandon G., 2015. "Does a college education reduce depressive symptoms in American young adults?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 75-84.
    6. Barr, Peter B. & Salvatore, Jessica E. & Maes, Hermine & Aliev, Fazil & Latvala, Antti & Viken, Richard & Rose, Richard J. & Kaprio, Jaakko & Dick, Danielle M., 2016. "Education and alcohol use: A study of gene-environment interaction in young adulthood," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 158-167.
    7. Rietveld, Cornelius A. & Webbink, Dinand, 2016. "On the genetic bias of the quarter of birth instrument," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 137-146.
    8. Steven F. Lehrer & Weili Ding, 2017. "Are genetic markers of interest for economic research?," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 6(1), pages 1-23, December.
    9. Janne Mikkonen & Hanna Remes & Heta Moustgaard & Pekka Martikainen, 2020. "Evaluating the Role of Parental Education and Adolescent Health Problems in Educational Attainment," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(6), pages 2245-2267, December.

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