Participation bias and human genetic studies
12:30 til 13:15
Free admission
Date: Thursday 20th of March at 12:30 in Askja, room N-132
Title: Participation bias and human genetic studies
Speaker: Stefanía Benónísdóttir, post-doc in Engineering and Natural Sciences, University of Iceland and at Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, Oxford University, UK.
Abstract: Participation bias is a known problem in sample surveys, and genetic studies are no exception. Ideally, to investigate participation bias at a genetic level, one would like to compare the genotypes of participants with those of non-participants. However, that is a challenging task since genotypes of non-participants are unavailable by definition. However, genetic data is unique in the sense that genetic information is passed down from one generation to the next, and all individuals are related to some degree. These characteristics of genetic data provide extra information that enables us to investigate participation bias in genetic studies using only the genotypes of participants. (See: Benonisdottir, S., & Kong, A. (2023). Studying the genetics of participation using footprints left on the ascertained genotypes. Nature Genetics, 55(8), 1413-1420.)
Stefanía Benónísdóttir, post-doc in Engineering and Natural Sciences, University of Iceland
