title: The Texas Twin Project.
abstract: Socioeconomic position, racial/ethnic minority status, and other characteristics of the macro-environment may be important moderators of genetic influence on a wide array of psychosocial outcomes. Designed to maximize representation of low socioeconomic status families and racial/ethnic minorities, the Texas Twin Project is an ongoing study of school-age twins (preschool through 12th grade) enrolled in public schools in the Austin, Texas and Houston, Texas metropolitan areas. School rosters are used to identify twin families from a target population with sizable populations of African American (18%), Hispanic/Latino (48%), and non-Hispanic White (27%) children and adolescents, over half of whom meet US guidelines for classification as economically disadvantaged. Initial efforts have focused on a large-scale, family-based survey study involving both parent and child reports of personality, psychopathology, physical health, academic interests, parent-child relationships, and aspects of the home environment. In addition, the Texas Twin Project is the basis for an in-laboratory study of adolescent decision-making, delinquency, and substance use. Future directions include geographic expansion of the sample to the entire state of Texas (with a population of over 25 million) and genotyping of participating twins.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, The University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712, USA. harden@psy.utexas.edu
authors.forename: K Paige
authors.initials: KP
authors.lastname: Harden
authors.forename: Elliot M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Tucker-Drob
authors.forename: Jennifer L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Tackett
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D015331:Cohort Studies; D004200:Diseases in Twins / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000235:genetics; D005006:Ethnicity; D005260:Female; D059647:Gene-Environment Interaction; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D012042:Registries; D012931:Social Environment; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013781:Texas / Q000453:epidemiology; D014427:Twins / Q000235:genetics*; D055815:Young Adult