TY - JOUR AU - Kutschke, Julia AU - Falch, Anina AU - Brandt, Ingunn AU - Nilsen, Thomas S. AU - Jugessur, Astanand AU - Halekoh, Ulrich AU - Seeman, Teresa E. AU - Harris, Jennifer R. PY - 2016/07/20 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - Social Factors and Health: Description of a new Norwegian twin study JF - Norsk Epidemiologi JA - Nor J Epidemiol VL - 26 IS - 1-2 SE - DO - 10.5324/nje.v26i1-2.2021 UR - https://www.ntnu.no/ojs/index.php/norepid/article/view/2021 SP - AB - A compelling literature substantiates that our social worlds have significant and far-reaching effects on<br />health and well-being throughout life. Yet, few studies of social factors and their effects on health have been<br />embedded within the twin design. Towards this end, we have initiated a new twin study on social factors and<br />health which will investigate the genetic and environmental influences on social environments, and explore<br />how social environments mediate these influences on physical and mental health. Herein, we describe the<br />study sample, response rates and measures. Twins born 1935-1960 were invited to complete a questionnaire<br />and these data were supplemented with information on cardiovascular disease and cancer through linkage to<br />national health registries. Among the 10655 twins who were contacted, responses were received from 5446<br />individuals (1989 pairs and 1468 single responders). The subsample of pairs where both twins responded includes<br />1004 identical (MZ) pairs and 985 fraternal (DZ) pairs. The overall individual and pairwise response<br />rates were 51% and 37%, respectively. The average age is 61.54 years, 56.1% of the responders are female<br />and 46.1% are identical twins. MZ twins were more likely to participate than DZ twins. Sex and age effects<br />were statistically significant for many of the psychosocial measures and for measures of support and strain<br />in the social network. There were no differences in the social networks between twins in pairs where both<br />twins responded and twins in pairs where only one twin responded. ER -