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Hagenbeek FA, Hirzinger JS, Breunig S, Bruins S, Kuznetsov DV, Schut K, Odintsova VV, Boomsma DI. Maximizing the value of twin studies in health and behaviour. Nat Hum Behav 2023:10.1038/s41562-023-01609-6. [PMID: 37188734 DOI: 10.1038/s41562-023-01609-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/20/2022] [Accepted: 04/19/2023] [Indexed: 05/17/2023]
Abstract
In the classical twin design, researchers compare trait resemblance in cohorts of identical and non-identical twins to understand how genetic and environmental factors correlate with resemblance in behaviour and other phenotypes. The twin design is also a valuable tool for studying causality, intergenerational transmission, and gene-environment correlation and interaction. Here we review recent developments in twin studies, recent results from twin studies of new phenotypes and recent insights into twinning. We ask whether the results of existing twin studies are representative of the general population and of global diversity, and we conclude that stronger efforts to increase representativeness are needed. We provide an updated overview of twin concordance and discordance for major diseases and mental disorders, which conveys a crucial message: genetic influences are not as deterministic as many believe. This has important implications for public understanding of genetic risk prediction tools, as the accuracy of genetic predictions can never exceed identical twin concordance rates.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fiona A Hagenbeek
- Department of Biological Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
- Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
| | - Jana S Hirzinger
- Department of Biological Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
- Department of Complex Trait Genetics, Center for Neurogenomics and Cognitive Research, Amsterdam Neuroscience, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
| | - Sophie Breunig
- Department of Biological Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
- Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA
- Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA
| | - Susanne Bruins
- Department of Biological Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
- Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
| | - Dmitry V Kuznetsov
- Department of Biological Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
- Faculty of Sociology, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany
| | - Kirsten Schut
- Department of Biological Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
- Nightingale Health Plc, Helsinki, Finland
| | - Veronika V Odintsova
- Department of Biological Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
- Amsterdam Reproduction & Development (AR&D) Research Institute, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
- Department of Psychiatry, University Medical Center of Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands
| | - Dorret I Boomsma
- Department of Biological Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
- Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
- Amsterdam Reproduction & Development (AR&D) Research Institute, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
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Analyzing Twitter Data to Evaluate People's Attitudes towards Public Health Policies and Events in the Era of COVID-19. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND PUBLIC HEALTH 2021; 18:ijerph18126272. [PMID: 34200576 PMCID: PMC8296042 DOI: 10.3390/ijerph18126272] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/31/2021] [Revised: 06/07/2021] [Accepted: 06/08/2021] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
Policymakers and relevant public health authorities can analyze people’s attitudes towards public health policies and events using sentiment analysis. Sentiment analysis focuses on classifying and analyzing text sentiments. A Twitter sentiment analysis has the potential to monitor people’s attitudes towards public health policies and events. Here, we explore the feasibility of using Twitter data to build a surveillance system for monitoring people’s attitudes towards public health policies and events since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, we conducted a sentiment analysis of Twitter data. We analyzed the relationship between the sentiment changes in COVID-19-related tweets and public health policies and events. Furthermore, to improve the performance of the early trained model, we developed a data preprocessing approach by using the pre-trained model and early Twitter data, which were available at the beginning of the pandemic. Our study identified a strong correlation between the sentiment changes in COVID-19-related Twitter data and public health policies and events. Additionally, the experimental results suggested that the data preprocessing approach improved the performance of the early trained model. This study verified the feasibility of developing a fast and low-human-effort surveillance system for monitoring people’s attitudes towards public health policies and events during a pandemic by analyzing Twitter data. Based on the pre-trained model and early Twitter data, we can quickly build a model for the surveillance system.
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Delivering Elder- and Community-Led Aboriginal Early Childhood Development Research: Lessons from the Ngulluk Koolunga Ngulluk Koort Project. CHILDREN-BASEL 2019; 6:children6100106. [PMID: 31581460 PMCID: PMC6826958 DOI: 10.3390/children6100106] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/20/2019] [Revised: 09/20/2019] [Accepted: 09/23/2019] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
Abstract
Elder- and community-led research processes are increasingly being acknowledged as critical for successful Aboriginal health and wellbeing research. This article provides an overview of the methodologies, methods and progress of the Ngulluk Koolunga Ngulluk Koort (Our Children, Our Heart) project—an Elder- and community-led research and research-translation project focused on the early childhood development of Australian Aboriginal children in an urban context (Perth, Western Australia). We describe the application of a participatory action research methodology that is grounded in Aboriginal worldview(s), from the collaborative development of the original idea to the post-funding processes of co-design and implementation, data collection, analysis, interpretation and translation.
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Huston AC. A Life at the Intersection of Science and Social Issues. CHILD DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVES 2017. [DOI: 10.1111/cdep.12265] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
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5
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Crosnoe R, Ansari A, Purtell KM, Wu N. Latin American Immigration, Maternal Education, and Approaches to Managing Children's Schooling in the United States. JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 2016; 78:60-74. [PMID: 26858462 PMCID: PMC4742351 DOI: 10.1111/jomf.12250] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/17/2014] [Accepted: 01/14/2015] [Indexed: 05/17/2023]
Abstract
Concerted cultivation is the active parental management of children's educations that, because it differs by race/ethnicity, nativity, and socioeconomic status, plays a role in early educational disparities. Analyses of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort (n = 10,913) revealed that foreign-born Latina mothers were generally less likely to engage in school-based activities, enroll children in extracurricular activities, or provide educational materials at home when children were at the start of elementary school than were U.S.-born White, African American, and Latina mothers, in part because of their lower educational attainment. Within the foreign-born Latina sample, the link between maternal education and the three concerted cultivation behaviors did not vary by whether the education was attained in the United States or Latin America. Higher maternal education appeared to matter somewhat more to parenting when children were girls and had higher achievement.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | - Nina Wu
- Children's Council of San Francisco
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6
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Liben LS. We've Come a Long Way, Baby (But We're Not There Yet): Gender Past, Present, and Future. Child Dev 2016; 87:5-28. [DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12490] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
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7
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Intersectoral Mobilization in Child Development: An Outcome Assessment of the Survey of the School Readiness of Montreal Children. SOCIAL SCIENCES 2015. [DOI: 10.3390/socsci4041316] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
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8
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Conceptualizing the Effectiveness of Sustainability Assessment in Development Cooperation. SUSTAINABILITY 2015. [DOI: 10.3390/su7055735] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
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9
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Thoughts on “Probability Values and Human Values in Evaluating Single-Sex Education”. SEX ROLES 2015. [DOI: 10.1007/s11199-015-0470-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
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10
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Sustainability Assessment and Indicators: Tools in a Decision-Making Strategy for Sustainable Development. SUSTAINABILITY 2014. [DOI: 10.3390/su6095512] [Citation(s) in RCA: 246] [Impact Index Per Article: 24.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
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Abstract
As with any discipline, the field of child development progresses by both deepening and broadening its conceptual and empirical perspective. The rewards to refinement are impressive, but there is little need for encouragement in this area, since existing disciplines, universities, and funding agencies reward depth. The current study makes the case for breadth: for combining insights from different disciplines and methods in synergistic ways. Examples include influences of family poverty on children, inequality and child development, and methods for assessing impacts of policies. Drawing together disparate ideas from different research traditions can be not only time consuming and frustrating but also deeply rewarding, both scientifically and personally. The study closes with thoughts about how departments, universities, funding agencies, and Society for Research in Child Development itself might promote interdisciplinary inquiry.
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Affiliation(s)
- Greg J Duncan
- University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-5500, USA.
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13
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Fisher CB, Busch-Rossnagel NA, Jopp DS, Brown JL. Applied Developmental Science, Social Justice, and Socio-Political Well-Being. APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 2012. [DOI: 10.1080/10888691.2012.642786] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/14/2022]
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Shonkoff JP, Bales SN. Science does not speak for itself: translating child development research for the public and its policymakers. Child Dev 2011; 82:17-32. [PMID: 21291426 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01538.x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 107] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
Science has an important role to play in advising policymakers on crafting effective responses to social problems that affect the development of children. This article describes lessons learned from a multiyear, working collaboration among neuroscientists, developmental psychologists, pediatricians, economists, and communications researchers who are engaged in the iterative construction of a core story of development, using simplifying models (i.e., metaphors) such as "brain architecture,""toxic stress," and "serve and return" to explain complex scientific concepts to nonscientists. The aim of this article is to stimulate more systematic, empirical approaches to the task of knowledge transfer and to underscore the need to view the translation of science into policy and practice as an important academic endeavor in its own right.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jack P Shonkoff
- Developing Child, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
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15
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Guerra NG, Graham S, Tolan PH. Raising Healthy Children: Translating Child Development Research Into Practice. Child Dev 2011; 82:7-16. [DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01537.x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 29] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
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Abstract
The understanding of nature and nurture within developmental science has evolved with alternating ascendance of one or the other as primary explanations for individual differences in life course trajectories of success or failure. A dialectical perspective emphasizing the interconnectedness of individual and context is suggested to interpret the evolution of developmental science in similar terms to those necessary to explain the development of individual children. A unified theory of development is proposed to integrate personal change, context, regulation, and representational models of development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Arnold Sameroff
- Center for Human Growth and Development, University of Michigan, 300 N. Ingalls Building, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-0406, USA.
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Brownson RC, Chriqui JF, Stamatakis KA. Understanding evidence-based public health policy. Am J Public Health 2009; 99:1576-83. [PMID: 19608941 PMCID: PMC2724448 DOI: 10.2105/ajph.2008.156224] [Citation(s) in RCA: 342] [Impact Index Per Article: 22.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 01/20/2009] [Indexed: 11/04/2022]
Abstract
Public health policy has a profound impact on health status. Missing from the literature is a clear articulation of the definition of evidence-based policy and approaches to move the field forward. Policy-relevant evidence includes both quantitative (e.g., epidemiological) and qualitative information (e.g., narrative accounts). We describe 3 key domains of evidence-based policy: (1) process, to understand approaches to enhance the likelihood of policy adoption; (2) content, to identify specific policy elements that are likely to be effective; and (3) outcomes, to document the potential impact of policy. Actions to further evidence-based policy include preparing and communicating data more effectively, using existing analytic tools more effectively, conducting policy surveillance, and tracking outcomes with different types of evidence.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ross C Brownson
- Prevention Research Center in St Louis, the George Warren Brown School of Social Work, MO, USA.
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Sherrod LR. It's 2009: Do you know where your teenager is? JOURNAL OF APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 2009. [DOI: 10.1016/j.appdev.2009.07.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
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Coch D, Ansari D. Thinking about mechanisms is crucial to connecting neuroscience and education. Cortex 2009; 45:546-7. [PMID: 18649878 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2008.06.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 38] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/24/2008] [Revised: 05/09/2008] [Accepted: 06/02/2008] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
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Friese B, Bogenschneider K. The Voice of Experience: How Social Scientists Communicate Family Research to Policymakers. FAMILY RELATIONS 2009; 58:229-243. [PMID: 20407597 PMCID: PMC2856091 DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-3729.2008.00549.x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/25/2023]
Abstract
Because scientific understanding of communicating family research to policymakers is incomplete, qualitative interviews were conducted with social scientists experienced in bridging the gulf between research and family policy. In keeping with the tenets of two communities and community dissonance theories, the underutilization of research in policymaking was attributed, in part, to misperceptions and miscommunication between researchers and policymakers who operate in different cultures. Social scientists identified cultural barriers they encountered and rewards they experienced when communicating research to policymakers. Ten recommendations detail pragmatic strategies for communicating across conflicting cultures to promote greater use of research in family policy decisions. The findings suggest a paradigm shift away from simply disseminating research to policymakers and toward developing collaborative relationships with them.
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