RT @AlexTISYoung: Important work on correlations between partners (assortative mating). These results show widespread assortment across edu….

RT @hfsunde: New paper! We look at partner similarity *before partner formation*, across health traits and education. Correlations across p….

(10/10) A big thank you to my excellent co-authors! @hfsunde, Rosa Cheesman, Nikolai Eftedal, @matthewckeller, @EivindY, and @espeneil.

(9/10) Several reasons besides direct assortment can explain partner similarities. In this paper, we cannot determine which processes are most important. However, we can distinguish between these in future research.

(8/10) Could health similarities be by-products of partner choice based on education? To some extent—partner correlations in health were reduced by 30–40% after accounting for educational attainment in adulthood or school grades at age 16.

(7/10) Do mental health and education determine partner choice? Many studies assume "direct assortment". If direct assortment explains partner choice, it is easy to predict correlations between siblings-in-law. But they are much more similar than expected under direct assortment.

(6/10) This means that children with a mental disorder are more likely to have another parent with a mental disorder or with low education. This matters for the distribution of both genetic and environmental risk factors among children.

(5/10) Below, we see near universal cross-trait assortment. In the prospective data, partner correlations are as strong between different mental disorders as for the same mental disorders. Later in life, partners were more likely to have the same mental disorder (see paper).

(4/10) We see strong similarity in education, as expected, and also for GPA at 16. In dark blue, we see that partners' mental health correlated from the start. But cross-sectional studies overestimate assortment. In red, we see that mental health became more similar over time.

(3/10) We studied all first-time parents in Norway 2016-2020 (I'm in the sample!) and used data up to 10 years before they had their first child. We looked at educational attainment, grade point averages at age 16, and 10 mental disorders and 10 somatic disorders.

(2/10) Assortative mating refers to partner choice, but is only one of several explanations for partner similarity. Many studies on partner similarity cannot determine if couples differed from the start. This matters for genetics and social inequality research.

(1/10) Check out our new paper in Nature Communications! “Non-random mating patterns within and across education and mental and somatic health”. In the paper, we study partner similarities before they (were likely to have) met.

RT @cremieuxrecueil: A study just came out showing couples' trait correlations cross-sectionally and a few years before having kids. Coupl….

Psykisk helse hos barn varierer sterkt etter foreldrenes inntekt og utdanning. Hvorfor er det sånn?. I fire år har vi forsket på sosial ulikhet, psykisk helse og genetikk. Kom på Kulturhuset onsdag 20. november kl. 9, så får du høre hva vi har funnet ut! .

RT @robertwiblin: It's not surprising that pro-family policies that cover like 2-6% of the cost of raising a child aren't sufficient to cou….

RT @hfsunde: Accompanying the preprint is an interactive figure where you can find the prevalence of all psychological codes in ICPC-2 acro….

RT @hfsunde: We have a new preprint!📰Here, we describe the association between parental income and psychiatric disorders from childhood and….

RT @AlexTISYoung:

RT @hfsunde: New paper alert!🚨In our new @NatMentHealth paper, we analyse over 350 million patient encounters across 14 years in Norwegian….