amsim: Simulations of assortative mating and selection bias in genetic studies of complex disease

Assortative mating and selection bias are two challenging confounders in genetic studies of complex disease. The former is reflected in spousal correlation at the phenotype level, whereas the latter is due to differential ascertainment or participation based on proband factors. To analyse the downstream effects of these phenomena, we have developed the amsim simulation framework for efficient simulations incorporating both these confounders into highly configurable phenogenetic scenarios. amsim is written in C++ while exposing user-friendly bindings to the R and Python languages through the amsimr and amsimpy packages, respectively. During the course of the presentation, we will consider the effects that assortment and selection have on the working tools of the statistical geneticist.