Comorbid Depressive and Anxiety Symptoms and Their Correlates Among 93,078 Multiethnic Adults in Southwest China

Background: Depressive symptoms and anxiety symptoms commonly coexist and severely increases the disease burden worldwide. Little is known about the patterns and correlates of comorbid depressive and anxiety symptoms among the multiethnic populations of China.Methods: This population-based study investigated the comprehensive associations of comorbid depressive and anxiety symptoms with lifestyles, stressful life events, chronic diseases, and physical and mental well-being among 93,078 participants (37,193 men, 55,885 women) aged 30–79 years across seven ethnic groups in Southwest China. Multivariable logistic regression models were used to estimate associations.Results: Overall, 2.9% (2.1% in men and 3.5% in women) participants had comorbid depressive and anxiety symptoms; there was considerable heterogeneity among multiethnic populations. Participants with chronic diseases were more likely to have comorbidity than those without them; people with rheumatic heart disease reported the highest risk, with an odds ratio (OR) of 6.25 and 95% confidence interval (CI) of 4.06–9.62. Having experienced 3 or more stressful life events (OR, 8.43, 95% CI: 7.27–9.77), very poor self-rated health status (OR, 33.60, 95%CI: 25.16–44.87), and very unsatisfied life (OR, 33.30, 95% CI: 23.73–46.74) had strong positive associations with comorbid depressive symptoms and anxiety symptoms, with a dose-response relationship (P < 0.05). High frequency of physical activity had negative associations. All the associations were stronger than depressive symptoms alone or anxiety symptoms alone.Conclusions: Our findings emphasize the need to focus on the vulnerable ethnic groups with comorbid depressive and anxiety symptoms, ultimate for help early prevention and improvement of health equity in the underdevelopment and high urbanization areas.

LRRK2 Gene Variants Associated With a Higher Risk for Alcohol Dependence in Multiethnic Populations

Background: Genetics influence the vulnerability to alcohol use disorders, and among the implicated genes, three previous studies have provided evidences for the involvement of LRRK2 in alcohol dependence (AD). LRRK2 expression is broadly dysregulated in postmortem brain from AD humans, as well as in the brain of mice with alcohol dependent-like behaviors and in a zebrafish model of alcohol preference. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the association of variants in the LRRK2 gene with AD in multiethnic populations from South and North America.Methods: Alcohol-screening questionnaires [such as CAGE and Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT)] were used to determine individual risk of AD. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were done in three independent populations (898 individuals from Bambuí, Brazil; 3,015 individuals from Pelotas, Brazil; and 1,316 from the United States). Linkage disequilibrium and conditional analyses, as well as in silico functional analyses, were also conducted.Results: Four LRRK2 variants were significantly associated with AD in our discovery cohort (Bambuí): rs4768231, rs4767971, rs7307310, and rs1465527. Two of these variants (rs4768231 and rs4767971) were replicated in both Pelotas and US cohorts. The consistent association signal (at the LRRK2 locus) found in populations with different genetic backgrounds reinforces the relevance of our findings.Conclusion: Taken together, these results support the notion that genetic variants in the LRRK2 locus are risk factors for AD in humans.

Regionalism, or the Limits of Inclusion

Between the late 1920s and the mid-1930s, the Volhynian authorities drew on broader ideas of European regionalism in an attempt to attach the province’s multiethnic populations to the Polish state project. The message put forward at museums and provincial fairs and in regionalist journals focused on national inclusivity. But the elite-led fetishizing of local folklore by regionalists like Jakub Hoffman naturally led to other types of exclusion—or, at least, to conditional inclusion. Ukrainian-speaking populations were permitted only as vestiges of premodern diversity, while a focus on synagogues and the tiny Jewish sect of the Karaites allowed regionalists to write Jews into narratives of rootedness that always emphasized Polish tolerance. Supporters of tourism, which offered another way of navigating the relationship between Volhynia and Poland, undertook the tricky balancing act of claiming the province’s status in the modern world and simultaneously repackaging backwardness as a series of desirable characteristics, such as primitiveness and exoticism.

Features of the diversity of hereditary diseases in different regions and multiethnic populations of the Russian Federation

Проведен анализ результатов генетико-эпидемиологических исследований наследственных болезней (НБ) в 14 регионах европейской части России, Юга России, Северного Кавказа, Волго-Уральского региона с суммарной численностью обследованного населения около 4 млн чел. Изучены пространственная изменчивость и генетическая гетерогенность НБ у населения различных регионов и в полиэтнических популяциях РФ. Выделены частые НБ, характерные как для всего населения конкретных регионов, так и заболевания, специфичные для отдельных этносов. Выявлена гетерогенность НБ в популяциях и этносах, как аллельная, так и локусная. Зарегистрированы ранее не описанные НБ, эндемичные для конкретных этносов. Показано, что в популяциях с различной этнической экстракцией каждый народ в своем генофонде сохранил специфический спектр, распространенность и генетическую природу НБ. Проведенный анализ позволил подойти к решению фундаментальной проблемы медицинской генетики - эволюции НБ в различных популяциях и этнических группах. The results of genetic and epidemiological studies of hereditary diseases (HD) in 14 regions of the European part of Russia, the South of Russia, the North Caucasus, the Volga-Ural region, with a total population of about 4 million people surveyed were analyzed. Spatial variability and genetic heterogeneity of HD in the population of different regions and in multi-ethnic populations of Russia have been studied. Frequent HD that are typical for the entire population of specific regions, as well as diseases specific to individual ethnic groups were identified. Significant heterogeneity of populations and ethnic groups, both allelic and locus, has been detected. Novel previously undescribed HD which are endemic for specific ethnic groups have been registered. It was shown that in populations with different ethnic extraction each ethnic group in its gene pool has preserved specific spectrum, prevalence and genetic nature of HD. Complex multifaceted analysis allowed us to approach the fundamental problem of medical genetics - the evolution of HD in different populations and ethnic groups.

Information Loss in Harmonizing Granular Race and Ethnicity Data: Descriptive Study of Standards

Background Data standards for race and ethnicity have significant implications for health equity research. Objective We aim to describe a challenge encountered when working with a multiple–race and ethnicity assessment in the Eastern Caribbean Health Outcomes Research Network (ECHORN), a research collaborative of Barbados, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, and the US Virgin Islands. Methods We examined the data standards guiding harmonization of race and ethnicity data for multiracial and multiethnic populations, using the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Statistical Policy Directive No. 15. Results Of 1211 participants in the ECHORN cohort study, 901 (74.40%) selected 1 racial category. Of those that selected 1 category, 13.0% (117/901) selected Caribbean; 6.4% (58/901), Puerto Rican or Boricua; and 13.5% (122/901), the mixed or multiracial category. A total of 17.84% (216/1211) of participants selected 2 or more categories, with 15.19% (184/1211) selecting 2 categories and 2.64% (32/1211) selecting 3 or more categories. With aggregation of ECHORN data into OMB categories, 27.91% (338/1211) of the participants can be placed in the “more than one race” category. Conclusions This analysis exposes the fundamental informatics challenges that current race and ethnicity data standards present to meaningful collection, organization, and dissemination of granular data about subgroup populations in diverse and marginalized communities. Current standards should reflect the science of measuring race and ethnicity and the need for multidisciplinary teams to improve evolving standards throughout the data life cycle.

Genetic Risk Scores for Cardiometabolic Traits in Sub-Saharan African Populations

There is growing support for the use of genetic risk scores (GRS) in routine clinical settings. Due to the limited diversity of current genomic discovery samples, there are concerns that the predictive power of GRS will be limited in non-European ancestry populations. Here, we evaluated the predictive utility of GRS for 12 cardiometabolic traits in sub-Saharan Africans (AF; n=5200), African Americans (AA; n=9139), and European Americans (EA; n=9594). GRS were constructed as weighted sums of the number of risk alleles. Predictive utility was assessed using the additional phenotypic variance explained and increase in discriminatory ability over traditional risk factors (age, sex and BMI), with adjustment for ancestry-derived principal components. Across all traits, GRS showed upto a 5-fold and 20-fold greater predictive utility in EA relative to AA and AF, respectively. Predictive utility was most consistent for lipid traits, with percent increase in explained variation attributable to GRS ranging from 10.6% to 127.1% among EA, 26.6% to 65.8% among AA, and 2.4% to 37.5% among AF. These differences were recapitulated in the discriminatory power, whereby the predictive utility of GRS was 4-fold greater in EA relative to AA and up to 44-fold greater in EA relative to AF. Obesity and blood pressure traits showed a similar pattern of greater predictive utility among EA. This work demonstrates the poorer performance of GRS in AF and highlights the need to improve representation of multiethnic populations in genomic studies to ensure equitable clinical translation of GRS.Key MessagesGenetic Risk Score (GRS) prediction is markedly poorer in sub-Saharan Africans compared with African Americans and European AmericansTo ensure equitable clinical translation of GRS, there is need need to improve representation of multiethnic populations in genomic studies

The image of Crimea among British travelers Edward Clarke and Reginald Heber at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries

This paper analyses two books by British travellers offering accounts of Crimea in the first decades of the Russian period in its history. Crimea became a stage in Western Grand Tour, offering a possibility to view and discuss different phenomena: Mediterranean environment, cultural heritage sites, multiethnic populations confessing different religions, the change of Crimea’s political status, and the first results of Russia’s attempts of its integration. The comparison of these two travelogues with other sources and the materials supplied by current researches has uncovered who the British mind interpreted Crimean realities. The travellers created unified image of Crimea featuring its past, present, and future. The travelogues under analysis uncover the features of researchers’ thinking in the period of transition from the Enlightenment to the Romanticism. This way, the notion of ethnic processes actually restricted to the search for modern parallels of ancient ethnic names. The books under study reflect a complicated and controversial process of Crimea’s integration into the Russian Empire. Heber considered the future as economic progress and therefore thought it necessary to develop Crimean trade, infrastructure, and economy, building them into all-Russia and all-Europe network. Clarke’s opinion of Russia was distinctly negative, therefore he thought desirable to ‘return’ Crimea to the Ottomans. The travellers created several stereotypes, such as the ideas of ‘earthly paradise’ in Crimea, ‘Tatar laziness,’ ‘golden age’ of the Crimean khanate, or ‘barbarous destruction’ of cultural heritage monuments by Russians, still existing in Western mind.

Information Loss in Harmonizing Granular Race and Ethnicity Data: Descriptive Study of Standards (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Data standards for race and ethnicity have significant implications for health equity research. OBJECTIVE We aim to describe a challenge encountered when working with a multiple–race and ethnicity assessment in the Eastern Caribbean Health Outcomes Research Network (ECHORN), a research collaborative of Barbados, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, and the US Virgin Islands. METHODS We examined the data standards guiding harmonization of race and ethnicity data for multiracial and multiethnic populations, using the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Statistical Policy Directive No. 15. RESULTS Of 1211 participants in the ECHORN cohort study, 901 (74.40%) selected 1 racial category. Of those that selected 1 category, 13.0% (117/901) selected Caribbean; 6.4% (58/901), Puerto Rican or Boricua; and 13.5% (122/901), the mixed or multiracial category. A total of 17.84% (216/1211) of participants selected 2 or more categories, with 15.19% (184/1211) selecting 2 categories and 2.64% (32/1211) selecting 3 or more categories. With aggregation of ECHORN data into OMB categories, 27.91% (338/1211) of the participants can be placed in the “more than one race” category. CONCLUSIONS This analysis exposes the fundamental informatics challenges that current race and ethnicity data standards present to meaningful collection, organization, and dissemination of granular data about subgroup populations in diverse and marginalized communities. Current standards should reflect the science of measuring race and ethnicity and the need for multidisciplinary teams to improve evolving standards throughout the data life cycle.