Pablo Mateos

People of the British Isles: preliminary analysis of genotypes and surnames in a UK-control population

There is a great deal of interest in a fine-scale population structure in the UK, both as a signature of historical immigration events and because of the effect population structure may have on disease association studies. Although population structure appears to have a minor impact on the current generation of genome-wide association studies, it is likely to have a significant part in the next generation of studies designed to search for rare variants. A powerful way of detecting such structure is to control and document carefully the provenance of the samples involved. In this study, we describe the collection of a cohort of rural UK samples (The People of the British Isles), aimed at providing a well-characterised UK-control population that can be used as a resource by the research community, as well as providing a fine-scale genetic information on the British population. So far, some 4000 samples have been collected, the majority of which fit the criteria of coming from a rural area and having all four grandparents from approximately the same area. Analysis of the first 3865 samples that have been geocoded indicates that 75% have a mean distance between grandparental places of birth of 37.3 km, and that about 70% of grandparental places of birth can be classed as rural. Preliminary genotyping of 1057 samples demonstrates the value of these samples for investigating a fine-scale population structure within the UK, and shows how this can be enhanced by the use of surnames.

Ethnicity and Population Structure in Personal Naming Networks

Personal naming practices exist in all human groups and are far from random. Rather, they continue to reflect social norms and ethno-cultural customs that have developed over generations. As a consequence, contemporary name frequency distributions retain distinct geographic, social and ethno-cultural patterning that can be exploited to understand population structure in human biology, public health and social science. Previous attempts to detect and delineate such structure in large populations have entailed extensive empirical analysis of naming conventions in different parts of the world without seeking any general or automated methods of population classification by ethno-cultural origin. Here we show how ‘naming networks’, constructed from forename-surname pairs of a large sample of the contemporary human population in 17 countries, provide a valuable representation of cultural, ethnic and linguistic population structure around the world. This innovative approach enriches and adds value to automated population classification through conventional national data sources such as telephone directories and electoral registers. The method identifies clear social and ethno-cultural clusters in such naming networks that extend far beyond the geographic areas in which particular names originated, and that are preserved even after international migration. Moreover, one of the most striking findings of this approach is that these clusters simply ‘emerge’ from the aggregation of millions of individual decisions on parental naming practices for their children, without any prior knowledge introduced by the researcher. Our probabilistic approach to community assignment, both at city level as well as at a global scale, helps to reveal the degree of isolation, integration or overlap between human populations in our rapidly globalising world. As such, this work has important implications for research in population genetics, public health, and social science adding new understandings of migration, identity, integration and social interaction across the world.

Geodemographics as a tool for targeting neighbourhoods in public health campaigns

Geodemographics offers the prospects of integrating, modelling and mapping health care needs and other health indicators that are useful for targeting neighbourhoods in public health campaigns. Yet reports about this application domain has to date been sporadic. The purpose of this paper is to examine the potential of a bespoke geodemographic system for neighbourhood targeting in an inner city public health authority, Southwark Primary Care Trust, London. This system, the London Output Area Classification (LOAC), is compared to six other geodemographic systems from both governmental and commercial sources. The paper proposes two new indicators for assessing the performance of geodemographic systems for neighbourhood targeting based on local hospital demand data. The paper also analyses and discusses the utility of age- and sex standardisation of geodemographic profiles of health care demand.

The Family Name as Socio-Cultural Feature and Genetic Metaphor: From Concepts to Methods

Abstract A recent workshop entitled “The Family Name as Socio-Cultural Feature and Genetic Metaphor: From Concepts to Methods” was held in Paris in December 2010, sponsored by the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and by the journal Human Biology. This workshop was intended to foster a debate on questions related to the family names and to compare different multidisciplinary approaches involving geneticists, historians, geographers, sociologists and social anthropologists. This collective paper presents a collection of selected communications.

Uncertainty in the Analysis of Ethnicity Classifications: Issues of Extent and Aggregation of Ethnic Groups

Uncertainty is inherent in the conception and measurement of ethnicity, by both individuals themselves and those who seek to gather evidence of discrimination or inequalities in social and economic outcomes. These issues have received attention in the literature, yet rather little research has been carried out on the uncertainty subsequently created through the analysis of such measurements. We argue that, while general-purpose ethnicity classifications offer a method of standardising results, such groupings are inherently unstable, both in their upward aggregation and in their downward granulation. As such, the results of ethnicity analysis may possess no validity independent of the ethnicity classes upon which it is based. While this conclusion is intuitive, it nevertheless seems to pass unnoticed in the interpretation of research conducted in public policy applications such as education, health and residential segregation. In this paper we use examples based on the standard Census classification of ethnicity, alongside new rich ethnicity datasets from the education domain, in order to evaluate the sensitivity of results to the particular aggregation that is chosen. We use a case study to empirically illustrate the far-reaching consequences of this commonly overlooked source of uncertainty.

Delineating Europe's Cultural Regions: Population Structure and Surname Clustering

Abstract Surnames (family names) show distinctive geographical patterning and in many disciplines remain an underutilized source of information about population origins, migration and identity. This paper investigates the geographical structure of surnames, using a unique individual level database assembled from registers and telephone directories from 16 European countries. We develop a novel combination of methods for exhaustively analyzing this multinational data set, based upon the Lasker Distance, consensus clustering and multidimensional scaling. Our analysis is both data rich and computationally intensive, entailing as it does the aggregation, clustering and mapping of 8 million surnames collected from 152 million individuals. The resulting regionalization has applications in developing our understanding of the social and cultural complexion of Europe, and offers potential insights into the long and short-term dynamics of migration and residential mobility. The research also contributes a range of methodological insights for future studies concerning spatial clustering of surnames and population data more widely. In short, this paper further demonstrates the value of surnames in multinational population studies and also the increasing sophistication of techniques available to analyze them.

Diferenciación sociodemográfica del espacio urbano de la Ciudad de México

El objetivo de este analisis es establecer una diferenciacion socio-demografica del espacio urbano de la Ciudad de Mexico a partir de un metodologia que presenta dos principales aportes: el primero es que se aplica una clasificacion geodemografica que muy pocas veces se usa, basada en estilos de vida o niveles socioeconomicos que tienen su origen en la geodemografia o geomarketing; y en segundo lugar, se usa informacion censal altamente desagregada a nivel de manzana que en muy pocos estudios se han llevado a cabo; como parte de los resultados se identifican seis clusters y se calculan varios indices de segregacion residencial. Lo anterior se elabora tomando como referencia los estudios de segregacion residencial que se han llevado a cabo en America Latina y en Mexico. Las conclusiones dan cuenta de como en la Ciudad de Mexico se notan rasgos del modelo tradicional de segregacion, como la persistencia de las elites en ciertos espacios, y como los estratos proletarios y las clases medias han tenido una marcada dispersion, junto a la localizacion periferica de los grupos pobres, mas en sintonia con las propuestas del actual modelo de dispersion y fragmentacion del espacio urbano

Ethnic residential segregation by nativity in Great Britain and the United States

ABSTRACT: This study examines patterns of ethnic residential integration in Great Britain and the United States. Using data from 2000/2001 censuses from these two countries, we compute segregation indexes for comparably defined ethnic groups by nativity and for specific foreign-born groups. We find that blacks are much less segregated in Great Britain than in the United States, and black segregation patterns by nativity tend to be consistent with spatial assimilation in the former country (the foreign-born are more segregated than the native-born) but not in the latter. Among Asian groups, however, segregation tends to be lower in the United States, and segregation patterns by nativity are more consistent with spatial assimilation in the United States but not in Great Britain. These findings suggest that intergenerational minority disadvantage persists among blacks in the United States and among Asians in Great Britain. We caution, however, that there are important differences in levels of segregation among specific foreign-born Asian groups, suggesting that assimilation trajectories likely differ by country of origin. Finally, the fact that segregation levels are considerably higher in the United States for a majority of groups, including white foreign-born groups, suggests that factors not solely related to race or physical appearance drive higher levels of ethnic residential segregation in the United States.

Google Maps Mashups for Local Public Health Service Planning

inequalities at the local level. This often entails understanding the detailed profile of a local area’s population and ensuring equal access to health services. Accessi-bility to health services, personal behaviour and lifestyles, community influences, living and working conditions, educational attainment and health literacy can all impact upon an individual’s health, and their aggregated effect is clearly manifested at neighbourhood level.

Strategic citizenship: negotiating membership in the age of dual nationality

ABSTRACT This introductory article defines the concept of strategic citizenship which stands at the focus of the special issue. This concept refers to the rise of a strategic-instrumental approach towards access to national citizenship, which is reflected in new acquisition strategies, practical uses and understandings. The article provides a historical account of the growing acceptance of dual citizenship, which has been crucial to this shift in the meaning of citizenship. We highlight the need to explore the consequences of strategic citizenship as they manifest in the everyday lives of individuals. We present three arguments that are derived from the articles in this special issue: a) a growing number of persons in non-Western countries are strategically acquiring a second citizenship for strategic reasons; b) this trend is associated with the rise of instrumental attitudes towards nationality; c) much of the value of citizenship has to do with rights to global mobility. Finally, this introduction summarizes the contributions of the nine articles in the special issue.