Discussant chapter: using family-based designs in life course epidemiology

Abstract

The three chapters in this section offer different but complementary conceptualizations of ‘family’. Morton and Rich Edwards used ‘family’ to document intergenerational concordance of reproductive outcomes, Hatch and Mishra documented how ‘family’ could be characterized as a risk exposure for later poor mental health, and Lawlor and Leon used ‘family’ as a means to control for unmeasured confounding by family characteristics to better understand causal mechanisms relating fetal growth to later disease. Lawlor and Leon’s approach is similar to that used in studies examining the possible intrauterine origins of birth weight and cognitive ability and we briefly explore that literature. Families surely matter for better understanding individual and population patterns of ill-health. If we know how families transmit different diseases across generations then it may elucidate novel or under-exploited avenues for prevention.