A robust and unified framework for estimating heritability in twin studies using generalized estimating equations.

ABSTRACT: The 'heritability' of a phenotype measures the proportion of trait variance due to genetic factors in a population. In the past 50 years, studies with monozygotic and dizygotic twins have estimated heritability for 17,804 traits;¹ thus twin studies are popular for estimating heritability. Researchers are often interested in estimating heritability for non-normally distributed outcomes such as binary, counts, skewed or heavy-tailed continuous traits. In these settings, the traditional normal ACE model (NACE) and Falconer's method can produce poor coverage of the true heritability. Therefore, we propose a robust generalized estimating equations (GEE2) framework for estimating the heritability of non-normally distributed outcomes. The traditional NACE and Falconer's method are deri

SUBMITTER: Arbet J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8520476 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature