STATISTICAL METHODS FOR GENETIC EPIDEMIOLOGY

Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD

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Abstract

DESCRIPTION: The objective of this renewed proposal is to continue developing and implementing new statistical methodology for genetic epidemiologic studies of complex chronic diseases including cancer, allergy and psychiatric disorders. The focus will be on the development of new statistical methods for analyzing multivariate survival data which occurs frequently when family data are collected to address issues such as detecting familial aggregation and identifying distinct genetic subtypes; mapping disease genes for complex diseases using multipoint linkage method or the association study method; incorporating genetic heterogeneity into the analysis of genetic linkage data. For each of these specific aims, we will evaluate existing statistical methods and point out their limitations and the impact of these on drawing valid inferences; develop and study both analytically and empirically, new statistical methods that are appropriate to address these issues; apply these new statistical methods to actual data sets of a variety of complex diseases which have motivated this proposed research; develop and distribute software to implement these new statistical techniques. The work proposed here will contribute, as we have in the past, statistical methodology to the field of genetic epidemiology in general and offer insight into each of the clinical areas represented by the various data sets used to illustrate these new methods.