The SSGAC facilitates large-scale GWAS meta-analysis for social-scientific phenotypes. This includes, for example, economic preferences, attitudes, economic choices, and socio-economic outcomes. The SSGAC provides an infrastructure and support for ongoing initiatives of other consortia to enlarge discovery samples or to find replication samples. The SSGAC also initiates and coordinates studies on new phenotypes, such as educational attainment.
How SSGAC can help
The SSGAC staff has extensive experience designing social science survey measures. We have developed surveys for studies including WLS, SALTY, RS, REFINE, HBCS, and B2ESS. We focus on facilitating harmonization across cohorts and work with each cohort to prioritize, adjust and implement phenotype measures. Please get in touch with us if you are able to collect additional data on your genotyped participants and we will work with you to develop a survey of appropriate length and content for your subject pool. Our survey instruments can be as short as just a few minutes, and will allow your cohort to efficiently collect new data to be able to participate in our meta-analyses.
Need for harmonized phenotypes
The SSGAC recognizes the need for phenotype measures that are validated and measured in a similar way in a large number of cohorts. To this extent, the SSGAC is developing recommended phenotype measures and survey templates that participating cohorts could include in future surveys or follow-up interviews with their genotyped participants. The SSGAC is also in the process of acquiring funding to support participating cohorts with this data collection. Updates on these initiatives will be posted on this site.
Phenotypes of interest
In general, SSGAC considers phenotypes that are interesting to researchers in the relevant domain, as well as biologically proximate and meta-analysis friendly. In addition, phenotypes should be widely measured in GWAS cohorts, maximize overlap with other genotyped cohorts (e.g. STR, HRS and WLS), are easy and inexpensive to administer and are measured using questions that are natural for respondents. Desirable psychometric properties of phenotypes include strong construct validity, predictive behavior in the relevant domains (e.g. medical outcomes, smoking, drinking) and reliability of measurement.
We are currently prioritizing the following phenotypes:
- Education
- Well-being
- Optimism
- Risk Aversion
- Time Discounting
- Trust
Phenotype data collection
We currently have an estimated sample size of 30,000 to 40,000 for most phenotypes, and a sample of over 100,000 for education. We already have acquired data for many of the above phenotypes for such large cohorts as HRS and SALTY. In addition, numerous cohorts are currently collecting data.
Cohorts we have recently supported in collecting new phenotype data include:
- Austrian
Stoke Prevention Study
- Croatian
National Bio-Bank
- Finland
HBCS
- Iceland
AGES
- Netherlands Rotterdam
study
- Singapore B2ESS
Sample questionnaires
Below are some sample survey instruments that we have recently prepared for cohorts collecting new data.
1. New social science variables in the Rotterdam Study
For the new round of phenotype collection in the Rotterdam Study, we included 5 new questions that measure risk preferences, optimism and time discounting. The aim was to maximize the overlap of these questions with already available questions in other genotyped cohorts. Some adjustments were necessary to make the questions feasible and meaningful for the survey participants in Rotterdam. If you are interested in these new questions, click here. Please note that these questions were slightly revised in Jan 2012.
2. New social sciences variables in REFINE
The Icelandic Heart Association started collecting data on risk preferences, optimism, time discounting and trust in a younger cohort of genotyped individuals. The new questions have been developed in collaboration with the SSGAC, with the aim to harmonize phenotypes across cohorts. The questions are short and simple and very similar to those in the Rotterdam Study and other genotyped cohorts. If you are interested in these new questions, click here.
3. NFBC adopts the new social science questions from the Rotterdam Study
The Northern Finland Birth Cohorts ( NFBC) have included the new social science questions from the Rotterdam Study in their latest round of data collection. The English version of these questions can be found here.
If you would like to participate in any of our meta-analyses or would like us to help you design instruments to collect new phenotype data, please be in touch directly with Olga Rostapshova (Olga_Rostapshova AT hksphd.harvard.edu). |
