'Mendelian randomization' equals instrumental variable analysis with genetic instruments

Interest in instrumental variable (IV) analyses using genetic instruments has been growing over the past 4 years. The background, strength and weaknesses of this approach, which in the epidemiology literature has been referred to as ‘Mendelian randomization’, has been recently reviewed by Lawlor et...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Statistics in medicine 2008-07, Vol.27 (15), p.2745-2749
Main Authors: Wehby, George L., Ohsfeldt, Robert L., Murray, Jeffrey C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bias
Causality
confounding
Disease - etiology
endogenous variables
Epidemiologic Methods
Epidemiology
Epidemiology - statistics & numerical data
Genome, Human
Humans
instrumental variables
Medical statistics
Mendelian randomization
Molecular Epidemiology
Random Allocation
self-selection
Variance analysis
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Summary:Interest in instrumental variable (IV) analyses using genetic instruments has been growing over the past 4 years. The background, strength and weaknesses of this approach, which in the epidemiology literature has been referred to as ‘Mendelian randomization’, has been recently reviewed by Lawlor et al. (Statist. Med. 2007. DOI: 10.1002/sim.3034). We suggest a change in the nomenclature of ‘Mendelian randomization’ and discuss issues relevant to IV analysis including instrument validation, motivation of IV analysis and interpretation of IV estimates in order to motivate a more consistent and standard use of IV analysis across applications using genetic instruments. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
ISSN:0277-6715
1097-0258
DOI:10.1002/sim.3255