Record linking and genetic analysis of Utah death certificates

This research examined the process of probabilistic record linking and the study of familiality for common causes of death. Genealogical records from the Utah Population Database (UPDB) were linked with records from the Utah Cancer Registry and death certificates from the state of Utah. Record linking was done with commercial record linking software from Matchware Technologies called Automatch. The cancer records linked by Automatch were compared to previous linking results to test the effectiveness of the software. The record linking methods established in this linking process were applied to the death certificates. Death certificate records from 1957 through 1992 were linked to the genealogy records; 126,085 (45%) death certificates were linked. The linked records were grouped by cause of death into the 61 most common causes of death. The familial predisposition of the common causes of death was studied using two different methods. The first method used the Genealogical Index of Familiality (GIF). The GIF uses the kinship coefficient to measure the degree of relationship between all pairs of individuals in the cause of death groups. The GIF was calculated for each cause of death group along with 100 sets of matching controls. The control mean was compared to the GIF value for the cause of death. Results of the GIF showed substantial familiality for a number of causes of death including kidney cancer, aneurysm, and prostate cancer. The second method used to examine familiality calculated a first-degree relative risk for the cause of death groups. An expected value for each cause of death was calculated using the resources of the UPDB and compared to the rate of each cause of death among first-degree relatives. A high first-degree relative risk was seen for a number of causes of death including alcohol related deaths, ovarian cancer, and lung cancer. The record linking software performed well and helped to combine the different data sets successfully. The linked death certificate records provided a large data set to use in the study of familiality for common causes of death.