A log‐linear model for binary pedigree data

Abstract

A pedigree model for binary data, motivated by log-linear modelling, has been developed to examine evidence for familial aggregation in disease status. From an epidemiological point of view a convenient way to express disease concordance between a pair of relatives is in terms of the odds ratio. For a rare disease this is almost equivalent to the relative risk of one family member being affected given that the other is affected, and in extending this to pedigrees it is assumed that these relative risks are multiplicative. In applying the model to the breast cancer data, pedigrees on a rare disease ascertained through an affected proband, it has been shown that estimation of concordance is de..