title: Accuracy of administratively-assigned ancestry for diverse populations in an electronic medical record-linked biobank.
abstract: Recently, the development of biobanks linked to electronic medical records has presented new opportunities for genetic and epidemiological research. Studies based on these resources, however, present unique challenges, including the accurate assignment of individual-level population ancestry. In this work we examine the accuracy of administratively-assigned race in diverse populations by comparing assigned races to genetically-defined ancestry estimates. Using 220 ancestry informative markers, we generated principal components for patients in our dataset, which were used to cluster patients into groups based on genetic ancestry. Consistent with other studies, we find a strong overall agreement (Kappa  = 0.872) between genetic ancestry and assigned race, with higher rates of agreement for African-descent and European-descent assignments, and reduced agreement for Hispanic, East Asian-descent, and South Asian-descent assignments. These results suggest caution when selecting study samples of non-African and non-European backgrounds when administratively-assigned race from biobanks is used.
authors.affiliation: Center for Human Genetics Research, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, United States of America.
authors.forename: Jacob B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Hall
authors.affiliation: Center for Human Genetics Research, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, United States of America.
authors.forename: Logan
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Dumitrescu
authors.affiliation: Vanderbilt Technologies for Advanced Genomics (VANTAGE), Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, United States of America.
authors.forename: Holli H
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Dilks
authors.affiliation: Center for Human Genetics Research, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, United States of America.
authors.forename: Dana C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Crawford
authors.affiliation: Center for Human Genetics Research, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, United States of America.
authors.forename: William S
authors.initials: WS
authors.lastname: Bush
mesh_terms: D018070:Biological Specimen Banks; D030541:Databases, Genetic; D057286:Electronic Health Records; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000235:genetics*; D005819:Genetic Markers; D006801:Humans; D044469:Racial Groups / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D005819:Genetic Markers