In this diverse pregnancy cohort, we found little evidence that SES measures were associated with widespread alterations in placental DNAme. Importantly, DNAme-SES associations observed prior to adjustment for genetic ancestry were attenuated after ancestry-informed modeling, highlighting the potential for confounding in epigenetic studies of social exposures, particularly in heterogeneous cohorts. Our findings underscore the importance of carefully accounting for ancestry-related variation in DNAme studies, and will inform the design of future studies aimed at investigating the molecular correlates of socioeconomic disparities in pregnancy and early life, and the associated adverse birth and developmental outcomes.
Beraldo et al. (Tue,) studied this question.