Epidemiology

Sparse dimensionality reduction approaches in Mendelian randomisation with highly correlated exposures

1. Vasileios Karageorgiou
2. Dipender Gill
3. Jack Bowden
4. Verena Zuber

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This paper is of broad interest to infer the causal effect of exposures on outcomes. It proposed an interesting idea for the identification of risk factors amongst highly correlated traits in a Mendelian randomization paradigm. The intuition for this method is clearly presented. However, critical details about implementation are missing and its application is not sufficiently demonstrated in the current form.

Reviewed by eLife

Weakening of the cognition and height association from 1957 to 2018: Findings from four British birth cohort studies

1. David Bann
2. Liam Wright
3. Neil M Davies
4. Vanessa Moulton

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This paper provides valuable evidence for a weakening of the association between cognitive ability and height from 1957 to 2018 in the UK. The authors find the strength of the association declined over this time frame. These associations were further attenuated after accounting for proxy measures of social class. This paper is a solid contribution to debates about how genetic, environmental, and social factors have affected the joint distribution of height and cognitive ability over the last 60 years.

Reviewed by eLife

Predictive performance of multi-model ensemble forecasts of COVID-19 across European nations

1. Katharine Sherratt
2. Hugo Gruson
3. Rok Grah
4. Helen Johnson
5. Rene Niehus
6. Bastian Prasse
7. Frank Sandmann
8. Jannik Deuschel
9. Daniel Wolffram
10. Sam Abbott
11. Alexander Ullrich
12. Graham Gibson
13. Evan L Ray
14. Nicholas G Reich
15. Daniel Sheldon
16. Yijin Wang
17. Nutcha Wattanachit
18. Lijing Wang
19. Jan Trnka
20. Guillaume Obozinski
21. Tao Sun
22. Dorina Thanou
23. Loic Pottier
24. Ekaterina Krymova
25. Jan H Meinke
26. Maria Vittoria Barbarossa
27. Neele Leithauser
28. Jan Mohring
29. Johanna Schneider
30. Jaroslaw Wlazlo
31. Jan Fuhrmann
32. Berit Lange
33. Isti Rodiah
34. Prasith Baccam
35. Heidi Gurung
36. Steven Stage
37. Bradley Suchoski
38. Jozef Budzinski
39. Robert Walraven
40. Inmaculada Villanueva
41. Vit Tucek
42. Martin Smid
43. Milan Zajicek
44. Cesar Perez Alvarez
45. Borja Reina
46. Nikos I Bosse
47. Sophie R Meakin
48. Lauren Castro
49. Geoffrey Fairchild
50. Isaac Michaud
51. Dave Osthus
52. Pierfrancesco Alaimo Di Loro
53. Antonello Maruotti
54. Veronika Eclerova
55. Andrea Kraus
56. David Kraus
57. Lenka Pribylova
58. Bertsimas Dimitris
59. Michael Lingzhi Li
60. Soni Saksham
61. Jonas Dehning
62. Sebastian Mohr
63. Viola Priesemann
64. Grzegorz Redlarski
65. Benjamin Bejar
66. Giovanni Ardenghi
67. Nicola Parolini
68. Giovanni Ziarelli
69. Wolfgang Bock
70. Stefan Heyder
71. Thomas Hotz
72. David E Singh
73. Miguel Guzman-Merino
74. Jose L Aznarte
75. David Morina
76. Sergio Alonso
77. Enric Alvarez
78. Daniel Lopez
79. Clara Prats
80. Jan Pablo Burgard
81. Arne Rodloff
82. Tom Zimmermann
83. Alexander Kuhlmann
84. Janez Zibert
85. Fulvia Pennoni
86. Fabio Divino
87. Marti Catala
88. Gianfranco Lovison
89. Paolo Giudici
90. Barbara Tarantino
91. Francesco Bartolucci
92. Giovanna Jona Lasinio
93. Marco Mingione
94. Alessio Farcomeni
95. Ajitesh Srivastava
96. Pablo Montero-Manso
97. Aniruddha Adiga
98. Benjamin Hurt
99. Bryan Lewis
100. Madhav Marathe
101. Przemyslaw Porebski
102. Srinivasan Venkatramanan
103. Rafal P Bartczuk
104. Filip Dreger
105. Anna Gambin
106. Krzysztof Gogolewski
107. Magdalena Gruziel-Slomka
108. Bartosz Krupa
109. Antoni Moszyński
110. Karol Niedzielewski
111. Jedrzej Nowosielski
112. Maciej Radwan
113. Franciszek Rakowski
114. Marcin Semeniuk
115. Ewa Szczurek
116. Jakub Zielinski
117. Jan Kisielewski
118. Barbara Pabjan
119. Kirsten Holger
120. Yuri Kheifetz
121. Markus Scholz
122. Biecek Przemyslaw
123. Marcin Bodych
124. Maciej Filinski
125. Radoslaw Idzikowski
126. Tyll Krueger
127. Tomasz Ozanski
128. Johannes Bracher
129. Sebastian Funk

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This large-scale collaborative study is a timely contribution that will be of interest to researchers working in the fields of infectious disease forecasting and epidemic control. This paper provides a comprehensive evaluation of the predictive skills of real-time COVID-19 forecasting models in Europe. The conclusions of the paper are well supported by the data and are consistent with findings from studies in other countries.

Reviewed by eLife

Blurred Molecular Epidemiological Lines Between the Two Dominant Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Clones

1. Amy C Dupper
2. Mitchell J Sullivan
3. Kieran I Chacko
4. Aaron Mishkin
5. Brianne Ciferri
6. Ajay Kumaresh
7. Ana Berbel Caban
8. Irina Oussenko
9. Colleen Beckford
10. Nathalie E Zeitouni
11. Robert Sebra
12. Camille Hamula
13. Melissa Smith
14. Andrew Kasarskis
15. Gopi Patel
16. Russell B McBride
17. Harm van Bakel
18. Deena R Altman

Reviewed by Review Commons

Cardiovascular disease and subsequent risk of psychiatric disorders: a nationwide sibling-controlled study

1. Qing Shen
2. Huan Song
3. Thor Aspelund
4. Jingru Yu
5. Donghao Lu
6. Jóhanna Jakobsdóttir
7. Jacob Bergstedt
8. Lu Yi
9. Patrick Sullivan
10. Arvid Sjölander
11. Weimin Ye
12. Katja Fall
13. Fang Fang
14. Unnur Valdimarsdóttir

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This is a useful quantification of the links of vascular disease on the development of subsequent mental health issues. It uses a robust dataset to quantify this association. Further work to focus the analyses, ensure claims are supported by the data, and consider alternative explanations is needed.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Body mass index and childhood symptoms of depression, anxiety, and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder: A within-family Mendelian randomization study

1. Amanda M Hughes
2. Eleanor Sanderson
3. Tim Morris
4. Ziada Ayorech
5. Martin Tesli
6. Helga Ask
7. Ted Reichborn-Kjennerud
8. Ole A Andreassen
9. Per Magnus
10. Øyvind Helgeland
11. Stefan Johansson
12. Pål Njølstad
13. George Davey Smith
14. Alexandra Havdahl
15. Laura D Howe
16. Neil M Davies

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This paper uses a new statistical approach called within family Mendelian randomization and asserts that claims of childhood BMI affecting a range of psychiatric traits are unfounded and were mainly caused by confounders that this new approach is able to better identify and control for. They do find a role for maternal BMI on a child's risk for developing depression. The main issue raised is that they do not convincingly show if they do not replicate the old association of childhood BMI with a range of psychiatric traits due to their technique simply having lower power to detect the signal or due to a true lack of this effect.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

The role of adolescent lifestyle habits in biological aging: A prospective twin study

1. Anna Kankaanpää
2. Asko Tolvanen
3. Aino Heikkinen
4. Jaakko Kaprio
5. Miina Ollikainen
6. Elina Sillanpää

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This paper provides evidence that an unhealthy lifestyle during adolescence accelerates epigenetic age in adulthood, and that these associations are largely explained by the effect of shared genetic influences. The main strengths of this valuable paper are the relatively large sample size, longitudinal assessment of lifestyle factors, and sophisticated statistical analyses. The paper is methodologically compelling and will be of interest for a broad audience, including individuals working on methylation, epidemiology, and/or ageing.

Reviewed by eLife

Nationwide mammography screening participation in Denmark during the COVID-19 pandemic: An observational study

1. Tina Bech Olesen
2. Henry Jensen
3. Henrik Møller
4. Jens Winther Jensen
5. Berit Andersen
6. Ilse Vejborg
7. Sisse H Njor

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This article is of broad interest to public health researchers and to health policymakers in populations with national screening programs. It provides important knowledge on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on participation in mammography screening in Denmark by socio-economic indicators. The study provides convincing evidence for how the pandemic exacerbated disparities in breast cancer screening in Denmark.

Reviewed by eLife

Adiposity may confound the association between vitamin D and disease risk – a lifecourse Mendelian randomization study

1. Tom G Richardson
2. Grace M Power
3. George Davey Smith

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This manuscript is of broad interest to readers in the fields of vitamin D and obesity. It utilises a Mendelian randomization framework to separate the genetically predicted effects of adiposity at two timepoints in the lifecourse, childhood and adulthood. The key claims of the manuscript are well supported by the data. Higher childhood body size had a direct effect on lower vitamin D levels in early life, while in midlife, childhood body size impacted on adult obesity to result in lower vitamin D levels.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

The influence of biological, epidemiological, and treatment factors on the establishment and spread of drug-resistant Plasmodium falciparum

1. Thiery Masserey
2. Tamsin Lee
3. Monica Golumbeanu
4. Andrew J Shattock
5. Sherrie L Kelly
6. Ian M Hastings
7. Melissa A Penny

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This manuscript explores the establishment and spread of antimalarial drug-resistant P. falciparum parasites using a combination of transmission modeling and model emulation. The authors add an important component to the broader understanding by jointly considering multiple factors driving drug resistance.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife