This project will investigate whether genetic data can help improve our understanding of the large disparities in health (e.g., cancer, cardiovascular disease) between socio-economic status (SES) groups (as measured, e.g., by income, education and wealth). The environmental pathways through which genetic endowments translate into socioeconomic status (SES) and health are poorly understood. This project combines measures of genetic endowments in the Dutch Lifelines cohort with high-quality (CBS) administrative microdata of the entire population of the Netherlands on health and SES (income, wealth, job type and education).
This uniquely linked dataset allows one to 1) estimate causal genetic effects (by conditioning on the parental genotype), 2) estimate causal environmental effects (by exploring natural experiments), and 3) explore extremely rich measures of SES and health, in the study of G×E interplay. Further, this project will seek to develop econometric and statistical genetics methods to explore the extent to which genetic factors are a plausible third factor that could explain the observed strong relationships between SES and health.
This project is hosted at VU Amsterdam.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s HORIZON-MSCA-2021-DN-01 programme under grant agreement number 101073237
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