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Study on subjective well-being launched We have launched a new large scale meta-analysis on subjective well-being (WB) in March 2012. WB is an increasingly major research topic in public health, psychology
and in economics (and is different from depression, which is a clinical
diagnosis). Partly because of evidence that positive WB is a coherent
psychological construct, and partly to maximize sample size, we define
the phenotype broadly to include all positively framed subjective
assessments of WB. There is much evidence that WB affects immune
function and health status, as well as other life outcomes. There is
much interest in the genetic basis of WB, with twin studies suggesting
it is ~50% heritable. While there is some genetic analysis of WB,
including a genome-wide linkage study, as far as we know, there is no
large-scale meta-GWAS effort like the one we propose here. This new initiative is co-ordinate by Meike Bartels (VU University Amsterdam), Dan Benjamin (Cornell University), David Cesarini (New York University), Jan-Emmanuel De Neve (University College London), Philipp Koellinger
(Erasmus University Rotterdam), Bob Krueger (University of Minnesota) and
Niels Rietveld (Erasmus University Rotterdam).
We are still recruiting cohorts for the discovery stage of this exciting new project! Contact us to join asap!
3rd workshop of the SSGAC on 19 May 2013 in Reykjavik, Iceland
Our workshop series is intended to be a platform for interested parties to meet and exchange ideas about cooperation in pooling data to have adequate statistical power for genetic analysis of social science traits. We have set up an engaging program again, with excellent speakers, updates and discussions about ongoing and future research initiatives. The workshop is organized in conjunction with the bi-annual CHARGE meeting and will be hosted by the Hilton Nordica Hotel. To join us, contact Carl Beck at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Discovery phase for educational attainment study finished
The SSGAC started a large scale meta-analysis of GWASs on educational attainment in February 2011. This is the pilot project of the new consortium. Until July 2011, 41 independent cohorts had uploaded their results, yielding a discovery sample size of over 100,000 observations. The three meta-analysts of this project (Niels Rietveld from Erasmus University Rotterdam, Jaime Derringer from the University of Minnesota and Nico Martin from the Queensland Institute of Medical Research) have been occupied with quality controls of the uploaded files since then. The final results of the discovery stage meta-analysis are available now and the SSGAC is currently finishing the replication stage for this project. |
