{"id":237,"date":"2019-06-21T18:25:52","date_gmt":"2019-06-21T18:25:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/faculty.som.yale.edu\/mushfiqmobarak\/?page_id=237"},"modified":"2019-07-02T15:55:03","modified_gmt":"2019-07-02T15:55:03","slug":"causes-and-consequences-of-consanguinity-in-bangladesh-and-pakistan","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/faculty.som.yale.edu\/mushfiqmobarak\/causes-and-consequences-of-consanguinity-in-bangladesh-and-pakistan\/","title":{"rendered":"Causes and Consequences of Consanguinity in Bangladesh and Pakistan"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Project Summary<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

An estimated 1,000 million people live in countries where 20-50+% of all marriages are contracted between couples related (generally second cousins or closer).\u00a0 This estimate is deliberately conservative, since in many of the most populous countries, such as Indonesia and Bangladesh, very few studies have attempted to determine the current prevalence of consanguinity or its effects on population health. In an earlier household-based survey of the Teknaf region of Bangladesh, located in the extreme southeast of the country, which borders Myanmar, 17.6% of marriages were consanguineous.\u00a0 However, there is limited literature that adequately accounts for the possibility of non-random selection into consanguinity for families with socio-economic characteristics that may also pre-dispose them towards a certain morbidity profile.\u00a0 Given the confounding factors associated with consanguineous marriage and poor health, including poverty and lack of child immunization, the present multidisciplinary study was undertaken to investigate these social and economic influences on consanguineous marriage, and the survival and health effects of children born to such couples.<\/span>

The situation was assessed in a retrospective survey of 5,208 pregnancies reported by 306 first cousin and 305 non-consanguineous marriages in which detailed information on socio-economic characteristics, specific health outcomes during pregnancy, infancy, and from 1-15 years was collected in 2006.\u00a0 Using instrumental variables techniques that account for the fact that consanguineous marriages are only possible if a biological relative of the right gender and age is available, quasi-random variation in the incidence of first cousin marriages were generated to isolate the causal effect of consanguinity.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n


Research Partners:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n