13th Annual IGSS Conference • September 30-October 1, 2022

Integrating Genetics and the Social Sciences 2022

The Direct and Spillover Impact of Smoking Cessation Intervention and Genetic Risk on Health Outcomes: Evidence from Mean and Variance Polygenic Scores

Shubhashrita Basu, Center for Demography of Health and Aging

This paper aims to identify whether the impacts of a smoking intervention program on smoking behavior, body mass index (BMI) and the ratio of forced expiratory volume and forced vital capacity (FEV1/FVC) are moderated by genetic predisposition using data from the Lung Health Study, a randomized trial (RCT) of smoking cessation treatments. We interacted smoking cessation treatment - an exogenous environmental exposure - with polygenic scores that capture genetic contributions to both the population mean (mPGS) and variance (vPGS) of the different phenotypes. Results show evidence of genetic moderation using both the mPGS and vPGS for cigarettes smoked per day. However, while investigating the spillover impacts of the RCT on BMI and FEV1/FVC, results indicate genetic moderation only through mPGS (as opposed to vPGS or the dispersion scores).

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