Heterogeneity among populations for familial aggregation of blood pressure.

A simple model of familial aggregation was applied to age-sex corrected systolic (SBP) and diastolic (DBP) blood pressure data from two separate studies: The Québec Family Study and the Tecumseh Community Health Study. Examination of the familial correlations suggested heterogeneity across studies in all DBP correlations, but for SBP only spouse correlations were higher in Québec. Fitting the path model to the data revealed that the only source of heterogeneity for SBP was in spouse resemblance (u), which was significant in Québec but could be dropped from the model in Tecumseh.