Utilizing genome wide data to highlight the social behavioral pathways to health: The case of obesity and cardiovascular health among older adults.
Soc Sci Med
; 273: 113766, 2021 03.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-33621753
ABSTRACT
We use genome-wide data from the 1992-2016 Health and Retirement Study (n = 12,090) to characterize obesity among older adults as genetically or socially oriented. To illustrate the significance of this approach for social epidemiological research, we deem those with the lowest genetic risk for obesity to be socially-behaviorally obese and obesity among those with the highest polygenic risk is characterized as genetically oriented. We then examine the association between obesity and four indicators of cardiovascular health (type-2 diabetes, hypertension, heart problems, and stroke) among those with low, average, and high genetic risk. Our results show that the association between obesity and cardiovascular health is significantly higher for those with the lowest genetic risk (e.g., social-behavioral obesity). We also demonstrate important sex differences such that this association is particularly strong for heart problems among men and hypertension and stroke among women. Our results further demonstrate the centrality of the social and behavioral determinants of health by utilizing detailed information across the human genome and add to both social and genetic epidemiology literatures.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Stroke
/
Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2
/
Hypertension
Type of study:
Etiology_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Limits:
Aged
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
Language:
En
Journal:
Soc Sci Med
Year:
2021
Type:
Article