Rural-Urban Differences in Polygenic Associations for Health and Health Behaviors

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PROJECT SUMMARY This project offers a different perspective on rural-urban health disparities by examining the potential role played by genetic predisposition toward cardiovascular health (CVH) risk. The findings from this work provide critical insight for population health policy given the importance of understanding the fundamental and complex origins of health challenges, be they social or biological, or a combination of both. We use five waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) and build upon recent research that has demonstrated a clear urban cardiovascular health advantage across four measured and self-reported indicators of CVH: 1) Obesity; 2) High Cholesterol; 3) Hypertension; and 4) Diabetes. Our study examines rural-urban differences in the association between each of these measures of CVH and its corresponding polygenic score (PGS) which measures genetic predisposition toward each of the health outcomes. PGS values for three of these health outcomes already exist and we create PGS estimates for hypertension. This measure will be made available to Add Health users to fuel additional research on the intersections between social and genetic aspects of health disparities. Based on the small amount of research published on rural-urban disparities, we anticipate that genetic influences on CVH will be substantially lower among residents of rural areas compared to urban area residents. In doing so, this study will contribute to literatures in both social and genetic epidemiology related to rural-urban health disparities.