Generation Scotland: the Scottish Family Health Study; a new resource for researching genes and heritability

As well as gene identification, the family-based study design will allow measurement of the heritability and familial aggregation of relevant quantitative traits, and the study of how genetic effects may vary by parent-of-origin. Long-term potential outcomes of this research include the targeting of disease prevention and treatment, and the development of screening tools based on the new genetic information. This study approach is complementary to other population-based genetic epidemiology studies, such as UK Biobank, which are established primarily to characterise genes and genetic risk in the population.