PLoS Medicine (Feb 2009)

STrengthening the REporting of Genetic Association Studies (STREGA): an extension of the STROBE statement.

  • Julian Little,
  • Julian P T Higgins,
  • John P A Ioannidis,
  • David Moher,
  • France Gagnon,
  • Erik von Elm,
  • Muin J Khoury,
  • Barbara Cohen,
  • George Davey-Smith,
  • Jeremy Grimshaw,
  • Paul Scheet,
  • Marta Gwinn,
  • Robin E Williamson,
  • Guang Yong Zou,
  • Kim Hutchings,
  • Candice Y Johnson,
  • Valerie Tait,
  • Miriam Wiens,
  • Jean Golding,
  • Cornelia van Duijn,
  • John McLaughlin,
  • Andrew Paterson,
  • George Wells,
  • Isabel Fortier,
  • Matthew Freedman,
  • Maja Zecevic,
  • Richard King,
  • Claire Infante-Rivard,
  • Alex Stewart,
  • Nick Birkett,
  • STrengthening the REporting of Genetic Association Studies

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000022
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 6, no. 2
p. e22

Abstract

Read online

Making sense of rapidly evolving evidence on genetic associations is crucial to making genuine advances in human genomics and the eventual integration of this information in the practice of medicine and public health. Assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of this evidence, and hence the ability to synthesize it, has been limited by inadequate reporting of results. The STrengthening the REporting of Genetic Association studies (STREGA) initiative builds on the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) Statement and provides additions to 12 of the 22 items on the STROBE checklist. The additions concern population stratification, genotyping errors, modelling haplotype variation, Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, replication, selection of participants, rationale for choice of genes and variants, treatment effects in studying quantitative traits, statistical methods, relatedness, reporting of descriptive and outcome data, and the volume of data issues that are important to consider in genetic association studies. The STREGA recommendations do not prescribe or dictate how a genetic association study should be designed but seek to enhance the transparency of its reporting, regardless of choices made during design, conduct, or analysis.