Exploring Rural-Urban Differences in Polygenic Associations for Health among Older Adults in the United States

A complex combination of genes and environment influence health and,
as a result, both genes and environment can play a role in shaping health
disparities. We consider distinctions in these influences across rural and
urban settings, expanding upon work that shows lower genetic
associations in rural compared to urban places by studying an older age
group and examining more than the typical outcomes of alcohol/substance
abuse. Using a sample of 14,994 adults from the 1992 through 2016
waves of the Health and Retirement Study, our results suggest genetic
associations for BMI and heart conditions are significantly lower in rural
compared to urban settings. We do not find evidence in support of this
association for depression and smoking. In sum, the results suggest the
gene-environment interaction may play a role in the well-documented
disparities across rural and urban places within the United States, further
highlighting the importance of the social, economic, and built
environments for individual health.