The assistant professor of economics’ research was published in Health Economics in the Wiley Online Library.
June Kim, assistant professor of economics in the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business, co-authored an article in Health Economics exploring whether an individual’s weight is affected by the genes of their siblings.
In the article, “Testing for Family Influences on Obesity: The Role of Genetic Nurture,” Kim and co-authors John Cawley, Euna Han and Edward C. Norton explore this topic as a result of a large amount of literature that has documented strong positive correlations among siblings in health, including body mass index (BMI) and obesity. This paper tests whether that is explained by a specific type of peer effect in obesity: genetic nurture.
“Using genetic data in Add Health,” the authors write, “we find no credible evidence that an individual’s BMI is affected by the polygenic risk score for BMI of their full sibling when controlling for the individual’s own polygenic risk score for BMI. Thus, we find no evidence that the positive correlations in BMI between siblings are attributable to genetic nurture within families.”
Health Economics publishes articles on all aspects of health economics: theoretical contributions, empirical studies and analyses of health policy from the economic perspective. Its scope includes the determinants of health and its definition and valuation, as well as the demand for and supply of health care; planning and market mechanisms; microeconomic evaluation of individual procedures and treatments; and evaluation of the performance of health care systems.
Kim joined Elon’s faculty in 2019 and was previously an assistant professor at Purdue University. Her scholarly interests lie in labor and health economics, economics of welfare and poverty. Before her academic career, Kim was a research associate at Korea Credit Bureau.