Minority Health and Health Equity Archive

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/21769

Welcome to the Minority Health and Health Equity Archive (MHHEA), an electronic archive for digital resource materials in the fields of minority health and health disparities research and policy. It is offered as a no-charge resource to the public, academic scholars and health science researchers interested in the elimination of racial and ethnic health disparities.

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Author: search.filters.author.Risch, NeilSubject: search.filters.subject.genetics

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    Assessing genetic contributions to phenotypic differences among 'racial' and 'ethnic' groups
    (2004) Mountain, Joanna L; Risch, Neil
    Descriptions of human genetic variation given thirty years ago have held up well, considering the substantial accrual of DNA sequence data in the interim. Most importantly, estimates of between-group genetic variation have remained relatively low. Despite the low average level of between-group variation, clusters recently inferred from multilocus genetic data coincide closely with groups defined by self-identified race or continental ancestry. This correspondence implies that genetic factors might contribute to unexplained between-group phenotypic variation. Current understanding of the contribution of genes to variation in most complex traits is limited, however. Under these circumstances, assumptions about genetic contributions to goup differences are unfounded. In the absence of detailed understanding, 'racial' and 'ethnic' categories will remain useful in biomedical research. Further, we suggest approaches and guidelines for assessing the contribution of genetic factors to between-group phenotypic differences, including studies of candidate genes and analyses of recently admixed populations.
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    A Genome Scan for Hypertension Susceptibility Loci in Populations of Chinese and Japanese Origins
    (2003) Ranade, Koustubh; Hinds, David; Hsiung, Chao Agnes; Chuang, Lee-Ming; Chang, Mau-Song; Chen, Ying-Tsung; Pesich, Robert; Hebert, Joan; Chen, Yii-Der I; Dzau, Victor; Olshen, Richard; Curb, David; Botstein, David; Cox, David R; Risch, Neil
    Background: Our understanding of genes that predispose to essential hypertension is poor. Methods: A genome-wide scan for linkage at ~10 cM resolution was done on 1425 sibpairs of Chinese and Japanese origins that were concordant for hypertension (N = 661), low–normal blood pressure (BP) (N = 184), or discordant for BP (N = 580). Results: There was no significant evidence of linkage to a single locus in the genome. There was suggestive evidence of linkage to chromosome 10p, with a LOD score of 2.5. Conclusions: We can exclude the possibility that a single gene accounts for at least 15% of the variance in hypertension in this population.