Introduction by Meena Kumari

Presenter: Meena Kumari, ISER, University of Essex

Author: Meena Kumari

A number of population studies such as Understanding Society and the 1958 British Birth Cohort now provide richly phenotyped resources to investigate genetic and environmental contributions to individual health, behaviour and wellbeing. In this symposium we provide example of potential uses of the data by both the genetic and social science research communities. Prins et al., will describe the genome-wide data now available from 10,484 samples in Understanding Society. Data have been deposited in the European Genome Phenome Archive (www.ebi.ac.uk/ega/home) and a data access committee has been established to enable data sharing (www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/about/health/data). Zabaneh et al., demonstrate a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of two cognitive performance phenotypes in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) which will be replicated with data from Understanding Society. Davies et al., provides an example of the utility of published GWAS to examine whether genetic markers associated with educational attainment are also associated with labour market outcomes in the 1958 British Birth Cohort. Fatemifar et al., have conducted a GWAS of Apolipoprotein E in ELSA and will use the rich phenotype data available in Understanding Society to describe the biological and cognitive significance of associated genetic markers. Garfield et al., uses genetic markers from published GWAS of adiposity and a technique called Mendelian Randomisation to understand their association with sleep duration. Discussion will focus on these examples and additional uses of the genetic data available in Understanding Society, and how these data will serve to enhance both social science and genetic research.