Genetic Epidemiology, Translational Neurogenomics, Psychiatric Genetics and Statistical Genetics Laboratories investigate the pattern of disease in families, particularly identical and non-identical twins, to assess the relative importance of genes and environment in a variety of important health problems.
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PMID
10483506
TITLE
How accurate is the family history method for assessing siblings' sexual orientation?
ABSTRACT
Previous studies investigating the familial nature of sexual orientation have often relied on the reports of siblings. They have generally obtained extremely high accuracy rates for proband rating of the sexual orientation of siblings. However, participants in these studies have probably been unusually open about their sexual orientation, and thus it is uncertain if more representative participants would have as accurate knowledge about their families. An unselected sample of twins from the Australian Twin Registry rated their own, their cotwins', and their siblings' sexual orientations. We examined accuracy of heterosexual and homosexual probands' assessments of their twins' sexual orientations, as well as cotwins' agreement about other siblings' orientations. Concordance between twins' ratings of their cotwins' orientations with the cotwins' self-rated orientations was considerably lower than that found in previous studies, as was the level of agreement between members of a twin pair in the assessment of other siblings' sexual orientations. Marital history as a proxy variable for determining the sexual orientation of older subjects did not support its use with women, though its use for older men received some weak support.
DATE PUBLISHED
1999 Apr
HISTORY
PUBSTATUS PUBSTATUSDATE
pubmed 1999/09/14
medline 1999/09/14 00:01
entrez 1999/09/14 00:00
AUTHORS
NAME COLLECTIVENAME LASTNAME FORENAME INITIALS AFFILIATION AFFILIATIONINFO
Kirk KM Kirk K M KM Epidemiology Unit, Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Royal Brisbane Hospital. kathE@qimr.edu.au
Bailey JM Bailey J M JM
Martin NG Martin N G NG
INVESTIGATORS
JOURNAL
VOLUME: 28
ISSUE: 2
TITLE: Archives of sexual behavior
ISOABBREVIATION: Arch Sex Behav
YEAR: 1999
MONTH: Apr
DAY:
MEDLINEDATE:
SEASON:
CITEDMEDIUM: Print
ISSN: 0004-0002
ISSNTYPE: Print
MEDLINE JOURNAL
MEDLINETA: Arch Sex Behav
COUNTRY: United States
ISSNLINKING: 0004-0002
NLMUNIQUEID: 1273516
PUBLICATION TYPE
PUBLICATIONTYPE TEXT
Comparative Study
Journal Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.
COMMENTS AND CORRECTIONS
GRANTS
GENERAL NOTE
KEYWORDS
MESH HEADINGS
DESCRIPTORNAME QUALIFIERNAME
Adult
Family
Female
Gender Identity
Humans
Male
Sibling Relations
Twins psychology
SUPPLEMENTARY MESH
GENE SYMBOLS
CHEMICALS
OTHER ID's