Over the course of the 20th century, genes began to play a greater role in the height and body mass index (BMI) of Americans, while their significance decreased in educational outcomes and occurrence of heart disease.
The findings, from research by Princeton sociologist Dalton Conley and colleagues, shed new light on how the genetic and environmental landscape of American society has changed over the past century, and highlight the power of combining new genetic tools with traditional social science research.
The researchers utilized demographic data and genetic information on nearly 9,000 Americans born between about 1920 and 1955 that was collected as part of the Health and Retirement Study, which began tracking a representative sample of older Americans in 1992.