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Abstract
This article describes how genetic components of disease susceptibility can be evaluated
in case-control studies, where cases and controls are sampled independently from the
population at large. Subjects are assumed unrelated, in contrast to studies of familial
aggregation and linkage. The logistic model can be used to test collapsibility over
phenotypes or genotypes, and to estimate interactions between environmental and genetic
factors. Such interactions provide an example of a context where non-hierarchical
models make sense biologically. Also, if the exposure and genetic categories occur
independently and the disease is rare, then analyses based only on cases are valid,
and offer better precision for estimating gene-environment interactions than those
based on the full data.