Genetically Informed Studies of Family Life: Effects on Adults and children

家庭生活的遗传学研究：对成人和儿童的影响

• 批准号: 7482205
• 负责人: ROBERT E EMERY
• 金额: $ 25.62万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2007-08-15 至 2010-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7482205
• 关键词: Accounting; Adult; Age; Behavior; Behavioral Genetics; Characteristics; Child; Conflict (Psychology); Data Set; Divorce; Emotional; Environment; Family; Family Study; Fathers; Genes; Genetic; Goals; Household; Individual; Life; Link; Marriage; Measures; Mediating; Menarche; Mental Health; Outcome; Parenting behavior; Parents; Personal Satisfaction; Personality; Pregnancy in Adolescence; Public Health; Range; Registries; Religion and Spirituality; Research; Research Personnel; Risk; Social Sciences; Teenagers; Twin Multiple Birth; Twin Studies; Virginia; anti social; base; child bearing; child well being; design; economic outcome; experience; family structure; genetic selection; male; motherhood; prevent; psychologic; satisfaction; social

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Extensive research documents that family experience, particularly family structure, is a risk (or protective) factor for a range of adverse physical and mental health outcomes in children and parents. However, the extent to which - or whether - family life causes unwanted outcomes is open to question. Neither parents nor children experience family life at random; rather, individuals are "selected" into family experiences based on known (and unknown) characteristics. Selection into the major family experiences that are our focus - teen pregnancy, divorce, stable marriage, and religious participation - is known to occur at the demographic level. Selection also is likely to occur based on unmeasured background experiences and individual characteristics, including genetically mediated selection effects such personality (e.g., antisocial behavior) or physical characteristics (e.g., age at first menarche). Behavior genetic researchers call this the gene- environment correlation, and suggest that the confound renders existing social science research on family life uninterpretable. We take this concern seriously, and have conducted genetically-informed twin studies of divorce and children's adjustment, step-father presence and early menarche, harsh parenting and child well- being, and parental conflict and child adjustment. Twin studies allow for complete (in co-twin control designs) or partial (in children of twin designs) control for genetic selection. Twin studies also control for the shared environment, because twins share family experiences in addition to genetic background. Thus, twin studies afford control for genetic background, measured experience, and unmeasured shared experience. We propose to use the Australian Twin Registry, AddHealth, and the Virginia 30,000 to distinguish genetic and shared environmental selection effects from the likely causal effects of teen pregnancy, divorce, stable marriage, and religious participation on the emotional and physical well being of parents and children. Public Health Relevance: Family difficulties are linked with adverse physical and mental health outcomes in children and parents. Because family experience is not random, we do not know whether family troubles cause these problems. Twin studies uniquely control for genetic and shared environmental selection effects, thus refining distinctions between outcomes merely correlated with teen pregnancy, divorce, stable marriage, and religious participation from outcomes caused (or prevented) by these major family experiences.

描述（由申请人提供）：广泛的研究文件表明，家庭经历，特别是家庭结构，是儿童和父母一系列不利身心健康结果的风险（或保护）因素。然而，家庭生活在多大程度上——或者是否——会导致不想要的结果，还有待商榷。父母和孩子都不是随机体验家庭生活的；相反，个人是根据已知（和未知）的特征被“选择”到家庭经历中的。我们关注的主要家庭经历的选择——少女怀孕、离婚、稳定的婚姻和宗教信仰——已知发生在人口层面。选择也可能基于未测量的背景经验和个体特征，包括遗传介导的选择效应，如人格（如反社会行为）或身体特征（如第一次月经初潮的年龄）。行为遗传学研究者称这种现象为“基因-环境关联”，并认为这种混淆使得现有的社会科学对家庭生活的研究无法解释。我们认真对待这一问题，并对离婚和孩子的适应、继父的存在和早期月经初潮、严厉的养育和孩子的幸福、父母冲突和孩子的适应进行了遗传信息双胞胎研究。双胞胎研究允许完全（在双胎对照设计中）或部分（在双胎设计的子女中）控制遗传选择。双胞胎研究还控制了共同的环境，因为双胞胎除了遗传背景之外还有共同的家庭经历。因此，双胞胎研究提供了遗传背景、可测量经验和不可测量的共同经验的控制。我们建议使用澳大利亚双胞胎登记、AddHealth和弗吉尼亚3万人来区分遗传和共同环境选择效应与青少年怀孕、离婚、稳定婚姻和宗教参与对父母和孩子的情感和身体健康的可能因果效应。公共卫生相关性：家庭困难与儿童和父母的不利身心健康结果有关。因为家庭经历不是随机的，我们不知道是否家庭问题导致了这些问题。双胞胎研究独特地控制了遗传和共同的环境选择效应，从而细化了仅与青少年怀孕、离婚、稳定婚姻和宗教参与相关的结果与这些主要家庭经历引起（或阻止）的结果之间的区别。