Stepping towards causation in studies of neighborhood and environmental effects: How twin research can overcome problems of selection and reverse causation

Health and Place

Volumn 27, Issue , 2014, Pages 106-111

  Duncan, Glen E ^a   Mills, Brianna ^a   Strachan, Eric ^b   Hurvitz, Philip ^a   Huang, Ruizhu ^a   Moudon, Anne Vernez ^a   Turkheimer, Eric ^c  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON SCHOOL OF MEDICINE   (United States)

^c UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA   (United States)

Author keywords

Causality; Environment design; Lifestyle risk reduction; Social and built environments; Twin studies

Indexed keywords

CAUSE OF DEATH; DESIGN; ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECT; ENVIRONMENTAL FACTOR; ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUE; ENVIRONMENTAL RISK; EXPERIMENTAL STUDY; NEIGHBORHOOD;

ANALYTIC METHOD; ARTICLE; CAUSAL ATTRIBUTION; ENVIRONMENT; FAMILY; HEALTH STATUS; HEREDITY; HERITABILITY; HUMAN; NEIGHBORHOOD; PRIORITY JOURNAL; QUASI EXPERIMENTAL STUDY; SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT; TWINS; DEMOGRAPHY; ENVIRONMENTAL PLANNING; EPIDEMIOLOGY; PATIENT SELECTION; RISK REDUCTION; STATISTICS AND NUMERICAL DATA; THEORETICAL MODEL;

CAUSALITY; ENVIRONMENT DESIGN; HUMANS; MODELS, THEORETICAL; PATIENT SELECTION; RESIDENCE CHARACTERISTICS; RISK REDUCTION BEHAVIOR; TWIN STUDIES AS TOPIC;

EID: 84896853741     PISSN: 13538292     EISSN: 18732054     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2014.02.008     Document Type: Article

References (25)

1. Correa C.R., Cheung V.G. Genetic variation in radiation-induced expression phenotypes. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 2004, 75:885-890.
2. Diez Roux A.V. Invited commentary: places, people, and health. Am. J. Epidemiol. 2002, 155:516-519.
3. Duncan G.E., Dansie E.J., Strachan E., Munsell M., Huang R., Vernez Moudon A., Goldberg J., Buchwald D. Genetic and environmental influences on residential location in the US. Health Place 2012, 18:515-519.
4. Flegal K.M., Carroll M.D., Ogden C.L., Curtin L.R. Prevalence and trends in obesity among US adults, 1999-2008. JAMA 2010, 303:235-241.
5. Frank L.D., Saelens B.E., Powell K.E., Chapman J.E. Stepping towards causation: do built environments or neighborhood and travel preferences explain physical activity, driving, and obesity?. Soc. Sci. Med. 2007, 65:1898-1914.
6. Gordon L., Joo J.E., Powell J.E., Ollikainen M., Novakovic B., Li X., Andronikos R., Cruickshank M.N., Conneely K.N., Smith A.K., Alisch R.S., Morley R., Visscher P.M., Craig J.M., Saffery R. Neonatal DNA methylation profile in human twins is specified by a complex interplay between intrauterine environmental and genetic factors, subject to tissue-specific influence. Genome Res. 2012, 22:1395-1406.
7. Hur Y.M., Craig J.M. Twin registries worldwide: an important resource for scientific research. Twin Res. Hum. Genet. 2013, 16:1-12.
8. Kaminsky Z.A., Tang T., Wang S.C., Ptak C., Oh G.H., Wong A.H., Feldcamp L.A., Virtanen C., Halfvarson J., Tysk C., McRae A.F., Visscher P.M., Montgomery G.W., Gottesman, Martin N.G., Petronis A. DNA methylation profiles in monozygotic and dizygotic twins. Nat. Genet. 2009, 41:240-245.
9. Kang B., Moudon A.V., Hurvitz P.M., Reichley L., Saelens B.E. Walking objectively measured: classifying accelerometer data with GPS and travel diaries. Med. Sci. Sports Exercise 2013, 45:1419-1428.
10. Kawachi I., Subramanian S.V. Neighbourhood influences on health. J. Epidemiol. Community Health 2007, 61:3-4.
11. Kenny D.A. Cross-lagged panel correlation-test for spuriousness. Psychol. Bull. 1975, 82:887-903.
12. Moffitt T.E. The new look of behavioral genetics in developmental psychopathology: gene-environment interplay in antisocial behaviors. Psychol. Bull. 2005, 131:533-554.
13. Naidoo N. Potential of proteomics as a bioanalytic technique for quantifying sleepiness. J. Clin. Sleep Med. 2011, 7:S28-S30.
14. National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, 2004. Predictors of Obesity, Weight Gain,Diet, and Physical Activity Workshop. National Institutes of Health. Available at:. Accessed Jan 03, 2013. http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/meetings/workshops/predictors/summary.htm.
15. Oakes J.M. The (mis)estimation of neighborhood effects: causal inference for a practicable social epidemiology. Soc. Sci. Med. 2004, 58:1929-1952.
16. Oakes J.M. Commentary: advancing neighbourhood-effects research-selection, inferential support, and structural confounding. Int. J. Epidemiol. 2006, 35:643-647.
17. Ogden C.L., Carroll M.D., McDowell M.A., Flegal K.M. Obesity among adults in the United States-no statistically significant change since 2003-2004. NCHS Data Brief 2007, 1-8.
18. Purcell S. Variance components models for gene-environment interaction in twin analysis. Twin Res. Hum. Genet. 2002, 5:554-571.
19. Subramanian S. The relevance of multilevel statistical methods for identifying causal neighborhood effects. Soc. Sci. Med. 2004, 58:1961-1967.
20. Tan Q., Ohm Kyvik K., Kruse T.A., Christensen K. Dissecting complex phenotypes using the genomics of twins. Funct. Integr. Genomics 2010, 10:321-327.
21. Turkheimer E. A better way to use twins for developmental research. LIFE Newsletter 2008, 2-5. Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany. I. Kruse (Ed.).
22. Whitfield J.B., Zhu G., Heath A.C., Martin N.G. Choice of residential location: chance, family influences, or genes?. Twin Res. Hum. Genet. 2005, 8:22-26.
23. Willemsen G., Posthuma D., Boomsma D.I. Environmental factors determine where the Dutch live: results from the Netherlands Twin Register. Twin Res. Hum. Genet. 2005, 8:312-317.
24. Zhao J., Goldberg J., Vaccarino V. Promoter methylation of serotonin transporter gene is associated with obesity measures: a monozygotic twin study. Int. J. Obes. 2013, 37:140-145.
25. van der Sluis S., Posthuma D., Dolan C.V. A note on false positives and power in G×E modelling of Twin data. Behav. Genet. 2012, 42:170-186.