https://aub.ie/MilitaryREACH-Cannon-A2021

Cannon-Albright, L. A., Romesser, J., Teerlink, C. C., Thomas, A., & Meyer, L. J. (2022). Evidence for excess familial clustering of post traumatic stress disorder in the US Veterans genealogy resource. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 150, 332-337. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2021.12.018

A genealogy of the United States (US) was created by combining public data on over 70 million individuals’ ancestors and descendants, representing 20-25% of the population. The US Veterans Genealogy Project linked the US genealogy data with demographic and medical record data from the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) to examine health-related outcomes and family patterns across generations of Veterans. This current study used these linked records to examine possible familial clustering (i.e., the presence of a disease within a family beyond what is expected) of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnoses. The Veteran data included 284,382 VHA patients and their more than 3 million ancestors. Analyses compared observed, or actual, relatedness among individuals with PTSD with the expected relatedness among similar individuals in the same population to identify excess relatedness and increased familial risk of PTSD. Results provided emerging evidence indicating a heritable component to PTSD predisposition; that evidence included systematic clustering of individuals with PTSD in the same family line, elevated risk of PTSD for first-, second-, and third-degree relatives, and the identification of multiple high-risk family lines.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2021.12.018

Mental health
Trauma
Veterans

Multiple branches

Veteran

Veteran

Young adulthood (18 - 29 yrs)
Adulthood (18 yrs & older)
Thirties (30 - 39 yrs)
Middle age (40 - 64 yrs)

Secondary Analysis
Quantitative Study

Cannon-Albright, Lisa A., Romesser, Jennifer, Teerlink, Craig C., Thomas, Alun, Meyer, L. J.

A genealogy of the United States has been record-linked to National Veteran's Health Administration (VHA) patient data to allow non-identifiable analysis of familial clustering. This genealogy, including over 70 million individuals linked to over 1 million VHA patients, is the largest such combined resource reported. Analysis of familial clustering among VHA patients diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) allowed a test of the hypothesis of an inherited contribution to PTSD. PTSD is associated strongly with military service and extended familial clustering data have not previously been presented. PTSD-affected VHA patients with genealogy data were identified by presence of an ICD diagnosis code in the VHA medical record in at least 2 different years. The Genealogical Index of Familiality (GIF) method was used to compare the average relatedness of VHA patients diagnosed with PTSD with their expected average relatedness, estimated from randomly selected sets of matched linked VHA patient controls. Relative risks for PTSD were estimated in first-, second-, and third-degree relatives of PTSD patients who were also VHA patients, using sex and age-matched rates for PTSD estimated from all linked VHA patients. Significant excess pairwise relatedness, and significantly elevated risk for PTSD in first-, second-, and third-degree relatives was observed; multiple high-risk extended PTSD pedigrees were identified. The analysis provides evidence for excess familial clustering of PTSD and identified high-risk PTSD pedigrees. These results support an inherited contribution to PTSD predisposition and identify a powerful resource of high-risk PTSD pedigrees for predisposition gene identification.

Elsevier

Article

Genetic Epidemiology, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Utah School of Medicine, LACA
Genetic Epidemiology, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Utah School of Medicine, CCT
Genetic Epidemiology, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Utah School of Medicine, AT
George E. Wahlen Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, LACA
George E. Wahlen Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, JR
George E. Wahlen Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, LJM
Huntsman Cancer Institute, LACA
Department of Dermatology, University of Utah School of Medicine, LJM