Criteria for detection of married or cohabiting couples in the UK Biobank.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

The UK Biobank (UKB) dataset contains a large number of spouse/partner pairs (hereafter, "couples"), making it a valuable resource for research on human mating. UKB data does not report relationships between participants, and UKB's preliminary participant colocation data (based on participants sharing the same street address) is not available for new researchers to request. This has led to different criteria for identification of spouse/partner pairs and highly discrepant sample sizes across papers, potentially contributing to heterogeneity in results. To address this, we developed and validated a standardized method for identifying couples that maximizes sample size while minimizing selection bias.

Methods

We evaluated combinations of geographically-derived var

SUBMITTER: Kelly KM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12810986 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature