title: Twin study of adolescent genetic susceptibility to mosquito bites using ordinal and comparative rating data.
abstract: Ordinal and comparative rating measures of mosquito attraction and mosquito bite frequency and symptoms were administered in a self-report questionnaire format to a sample of 197 monozygotic and 326 dizygotic Australian adolescent twin pairs at age 12 between 1992 and 1999, in order to investigate the environmental and possibly genetic determinants of variation between individuals. Repeat measures were obtained from the twin pairs at age 14. Ordinal variable measures, although providing some support for genetic effects on mosquito susceptibility, were affected by low repeatability. However, analysis of a comparative rating variable "compared with your twin, who is bitten by mosquitoes more often?" indicated a strong genetic influence on frequency of being bitten by mosquitoes, with no significant differences observed between males and females. Comparative rating questionnaire items are a potentially valuable tool for complementing and improving the results obtained from more conventional absolute measures.
authors.affiliation: The Queensland Institute of Medical Research and Joint Genetics Program, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. kathE@qimr.edu.au
authors.forename: K M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Kirk
authors.forename: L J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Eaves
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Meyer
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Saul
authors.forename: N G
authors.initials: NG
authors.lastname: Martin
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000818:Animals; D002648:Child; D009033:Culicidae; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D005260:Female; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D006801:Humans; D007299:Insect Bites and Stings; D008297:Male; D011793:Queensland; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires