Journal
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF EPIDEMIOLOGY
Volume 185, Issue 9, Pages 853-859Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC
DOI: 10.1093/aje/kwx034
Keywords
academic performance; birth weight; educational attainment; instrumental variable analysis; Mendelian randomization
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Funding
- Health Care and Promotion Fund, Health and Welfare Bureau, Government of the Hong Kong SAR (HCPF) [216106]
- Health and Health Services Research Fund (HHSRF), Government of the Hong Kong SAR [03040771]
- Research Fund for the Control of Infectious Diseases in Hong Kong (RFCID) [04050172]
- Health and Health Services Research Fund (HHSRF) [07080751]
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Observationally, lower birth weight is usually associated with poorer academic performance; whether this association is causal or the result of confounding is unknown. To investigate this question, we obtained an effect estimate, which can have a causal interpretation under specific assumptions, of birth weight on educational attainment using instrumental variable analysis based on single nucleotide polymorphisms determining birth weight combined with results from the Social Science Genetic Association Consortium study of 126,559 Caucasians. We similarly obtained an estimate of the effect of birth weight on academic performance in 4,067 adolescents from Hong Kong's (Chinese) Children of 1997 birth cohort (1997-2016), using twin status as an instrumental variable. Birth weight was not associated with years of schooling (per 100-g increase in birth weight, -0.006 years, 95% confidence interval (CI): -0.02, 0.01) or college completion (odds ratio = 1.00, 95% CI: 0.96, 1.03). Birth weight was also unrelated to academic performance in adolescents (per 100-g increase in birth weight, -0.004 grade, 95% CI: -0.04, 0.04) using instrumental variable analysis, although conventional regression gave a small positive association (0.02 higher grade, 95% CI: 0.01, 0.03). Observed associations of birth weight with academic performance may not be causal, suggesting that interventions should focus on the contextual factors generating this correlation.
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