The Relative Contribution of Genetic and Environmental Factors to Cancer Risk and Cancer Mortality in Norway

Edwin Leuven, Erik Plug () and Marte Rønning

No 05/2014, Memorandum from Oslo University, Department of Economics

Abstract: Using Norwegian cancer registry data we study twin and non-twin siblings to decompose variation in cancer at most common sites and cancer mortality into a genetic, shared environment and individual (unshared environmental) component. Regardless the source of sibling variation, our findings indicate that genes dominate over shared environment in explaining relatively more of the variation in cancer at most common cancer sites (but lung and skin cancer) and cancer mortality. The vast majority of the variation in cancer and cancer mortality, however, is explained by individual (unshared environmental) factors.

Keywords: Cancer; Twins; Heritability; Environment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 J62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19 pages
Date: 2014-02-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env and nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sv.uio.no/econ/english/research/unpubli ... 014/memo-05-2014.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The relative contribution of genetic and environmental factors to cancer risk and cancer mortality in Norway (2014)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:osloec:2014_005

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Memorandum from Oslo University, Department of Economics Department of Economics, University of Oslo, P.O Box 1095 Blindern, N-0317 Oslo, Norway. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Mari Strønstad Øverås ().