Discussion
Started 13th Aug, 2022
What do you think about the premise people with certain surnames tend to be more likely to die from a certain disease?
Well,
I am a very curious person. During Covid-19 in 2020, I through coded data and taking only the last name, noticed in my country that people with certain surnames were more likely to die than others (and this pattern has remained unchanged over time). Through mathematical ratio and proportion, inconsistencies were found by performing a "conversion" so that all surnames had the same weighting. The rest, simple exercise of probability and statistics revealed this controversial fact.
Of course, what I did was a shallow study, just a data mining exercise, but it has been something that caught my attention, even more so when talking to an Indian researcher who found similar patterns within his country about another disease.
In the context of pandemics (for the end of these and others that may come)
I think it would be interesting to have a line of research involving different professionals such as data scientists; statisticians/mathematicians; sociology and demographics; human sciences; biological sciences to compose a more refined study on this premise.
Some questions still remain:
What if we could have such answers? How should Research Ethics be handled? Could we warn people about care? How would people with certain last names considered at risk react? And the other way around? From a sociological point of view, could such a recommendation divide society into "superior" or "inferior" genes?
What do you think about it?
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Note: Due to important personal matters I have taken a break and returned with my activities today, February 13, 2023. I am too happy to come across many interesting feedbacks.
Most recent answer
In certain condition i guess. if it' related to gene diseases (especially for y- chromosome). Because people follow their father's surname. But it's also conditional.
But i can say surname itself doe not affect your immunity. cuz if woman marries some guy and changing their surname it wouldn't affect their immune system.
All replies (9)
All India Institute of Medical Sciences
its a pure co-incidence if you have got limited data in your data base. People started having various baseless thoughts during the pandemic.
Kuban State Agricultural University
I think that the surname may contain information about nationality. People of different nationalities differ genetically. These genetic differences may well manifest themselves in the difference in the probabilities of diseases. I could find out with the help of the models I developed and the software tools that support them. But this requires the initial data
Federal University of Minas Gerais
Dear colleagues, I don't think so.
Let us not just jump to genetic conclusions yet. I do not know of confirmed strong correlations between people's genetics and COVID-19 mortality (besides already deceased people).
I'm Brazilian. Here, if you get the data about COVID-19 casualties, you will notice that the surname "da Silva" is very recurrent. Nevertheless, if you know our history, 300 years ago, the wealthy Silva family had a monopoly on the slave market. Those sold slaves were given the surname "da Silva" meaning "Belong to the Silvas". Because today we face similar segregation from the slavery age, their descendants still have little access of quality health services. They could not distance themselves for economic reasons, so they were the most exposed to the virus and the higher mortality rates. I think it is a social segregation aspect. If your country presents similar social segregation then I think you should study this first.
Fortunately, it is relatively easy to rule out the social insight. Although I disagree with dear colleague Vijay Prakash Mathur in the fluctuation hypothesis, I agree that you should be careful with your data. Try group by social class, or income, or access to health services. If the trend holds, then I agree that you maybe be on to some genetic factor. I ask that we never say "superior genes" even inside quotation marks. There is no gene superior to others. There are advantageous genes in a given environment.
I hope this wondering were useful. Best regards
Freelance Gerontology Consultant
In scholarly research, this is faulty logic. Specifically, causal confusion and hasty generalization, leading to sweeping claims. Example: According to the U.S. Census, SMITH is the most common surname. More SMITHs die every year because their surname is SMITH.
Federal University of Minas Gerais
Dear colleague Merci Jean Bosco Ndemeye,
If you mean "How is that the correlation to surnames to COVID deaths may imply in genetic factors in play?" we are not saying that it is wrong or right. That's not really scientific. We are saying that there are very strong assumptions behind such claims and one should pay attention to them first.
For example, the same surname do not mean genetic similarity or parental relationships except in very secluded environments. Such as indigenous people settlements, or some names related to nobility titles.
Another more subtitle example to pay attention to the premises is the interpretation of the data, which I use surnames in my country to make a point. All surnames presents the same environmental conditions? Or people with surname "da Silva" tend to be exposed to the virus and get less quality health care due to economic reasons? Notice that this do have an impact in the COVID death rate. Genetic claims that I know so far have been dubious at best. I may be wrong, of course, but before make such a huge claim as genetics influence in COVID mortality rates, I'd like to see a solidly build-in base for it.
NIMS University
Dear colleagues,
I think that the surname of a particular locality may contain the same information genetically. I think it may possible that covid -19 may affect of the people of same genetically. I think, here same surname may contain similarity in gens. we can find out with the help of the mathematical models, But this requires the actual data.
In certain condition i guess. if it' related to gene diseases (especially for y- chromosome). Because people follow their father's surname. But it's also conditional.
But i can say surname itself doe not affect your immunity. cuz if woman marries some guy and changing their surname it wouldn't affect their immune system.
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