title: Association between healthy life expectancy at birth and consanguineous marriages in 63 countries.
abstract: In order to investigate the association between mean inbreeding coefficient (α) and healthy life expectancy at birth (HALE; years) the present ecological study on 63 countries was done. Statistical analysis showed that HALE negatively and positively correlated with log(10)α and log(10)GNI per capita, respectively (p<0.001). It should be noted that log(10)α and log(10)GNI per capita were significantly correlated with each other (p<0.001). After controlling for log(10)GNI per capita, significant negative correlations between log(10)α and HALE were observed. The countries were stratified according to their GNI per capita into low- and high-income countries. In countries with high income, after controlling for log(10)GNI per capita, the correlation between HALE at birth and log(10)α was significant (for males r=-0.399, df=32, p=0.001; for females r=-0.683, df=32, p<0.001). In high-income Asian and African countries, where consanguineous marriage is common, after controlling for log(10)GNI per capita, the correlation between HALE at birth and log(10)α was significant (for males r=-0.819, df=8, p=0.004; for females r=-0.936, df=8, p<0.001). It seems that consanguinity influences HALE independent of country income.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, College of Sciences, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran.
authors.forename: Mostafa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Saadat
mesh_terms: D003241:Consanguinity; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D038622:Internationality; D007492:Iran; D008017:Life Expectancy; D008297:Male; D036801:Parturition; D011203:Poverty / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric