Genetics and the geography of health, behaviour and attainment

• Published in: Nature human behaviour Vol. 3; no. 6; pp. 576 - 586
• Main Authors: Belsky, Daniel W., Caspi, Avshalom, Arseneault, Louise, Corcoran, David L., Domingue, Benjamin W., Harris, Kathleen Mullan, Houts, Renate M., Mill, Jonathan S., Moffitt, Terrie E., Prinz, Joseph, Sugden, Karen, Wertz, Jasmin, Williams, Benjamin, Odgers, Candice L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 01.06.2019; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 4014/2808; 631/208; Adolescent; Adult; Behavioral Sciences; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Child; Child, Preschool; Clinical outcomes; Concentration; Educational attainment; Educational Status; England - epidemiology; Experimental Psychology; Female; Genetic Predisposition to Disease; Geography; Health behavior; Health problems; Health status; Health Surveys; High risk; Humans; Infant; Intervention; Letter; Life chances; Life Sciences; Longitudinal Studies; Male; Mental disorders; Mental health; Microeconomics; Mobility; Neighborhoods; Neurosciences; Obesity; Obesity - epidemiology; Obesity - genetics; Personality and Social Psychology; Pregnancy; Pregnancy in Adolescence - genetics; Pregnancy in Adolescence - statistics & numerical data; Residence Characteristics - statistics & numerical data; Risk Assessment; Schizophrenia; Schizophrenia - epidemiology; Schizophrenia - genetics; Social inequality; Socioeconomic Factors; Teenage pregnancy; United States - epidemiology; Wales - epidemiology; Young Adult; Youth; England; United States; Wales; United Kingdom > UK; United States > US
• ISSN: 2397-3374; 2397-3374
• DOI: 10.1038/s41562-019-0562-1

Young people’s life chances can be predicted by characteristics of their neighbourhood 1 . Children growing up in disadvantaged neighbourhoods exhibit worse physical and mental health and suffer poorer educational and economic outcomes than children growing up in advantaged neighbourhoods. Increasing recognition that aspects of social inequalities tend, in fact, to be geographical inequalities 2 – 5 is stimulating research and focusing policy interest on the role of place in shaping health, behaviour and social outcomes. Where neighbourhood effects are causal, neighbourhood-level interventions can be effective. Where neighbourhood effects reflect selection of families with different characteristics into different neighbourhoods, interventions should instead target families or individuals directly. To test how selection may affect different neighbourhood-linked problems, we linked neighbourhood data with genetic, health and social outcome data for >7,000 European-descent UK and US young people in the E-Risk and Add Health studies. We tested selection/concentration of genetic risks for obesity, schizophrenia, teen pregnancy and poor educational outcomes in high-risk neighbourhoods, including genetic analysis of neighbourhood mobility. Findings argue against genetic selection/concentration as an explanation for neighbourhood gradients in obesity and mental health problems. By contrast, modest genetic selection/concentration was evident for teen pregnancy and poor educational outcomes, suggesting that neighbourhood effects for these outcomes should be interpreted with care. Data from a cohort of US and UK adolescents reveal that genetic and neighbourhood risks for early pregnancy and educational attainment are correlated, but find a weak or no correlation between risks for obesity or schizophrenia.