About the Authors

Ferdouse Begum

fbegum1@jhu.edu

Affiliation Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

Ingo Ruczinski

Affiliation Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

John E. Hokanson

Affiliation Department of Epidemiology, Colorado School of Public Health, Aurora, Colorado, United States of America

Sharon M. Lutz

Affiliation Department of Biostatisitics and Informatics, Colorado School of Public Health, Aurora, Colorado, United States of America

Margaret M. Parker

Affiliation Channing Division of Network Medicine and Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Michael H. Cho

Affiliation Channing Division of Network Medicine and Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Jacqueline B. Hetmanski

Affiliation Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

Robert B. Scharpf

Affiliation Department of Oncology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

James D. Crapo

Affiliation Department of Medicine, National Jewish Health, Denver, Colorado, United States of America

Edwin K. Silverman

Affiliation Channing Division of Network Medicine and Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Terri H. Beaty

Affiliation Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

Competing Interests

This study was supported by Award Number R01 HL089856, R01 HL089897 (EKS and JDC), K01HL125858 (SML), and R01 HL113264 (MHC) from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. The COPDGene® project is also supported by the COPD Foundation through contributions made to an Industry Advisory Board comprised of AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Novartis, Pfizer, Siemens, Sunovion, and GlaxoSmithKline. In the past three years, Edwin K. Silverman received honoraria and consulting fees from Merck, grant support and consulting fees from GlaxoSmithKline, and 331 honoraria and travel support from Novartis. The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study is carried out as a collaborative study supported by National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute contracts (HHSN268201100005C, HHSN268201100006C, HHSN268201100007C, HHSN268201100008C, HHSN268201100009C, HHSN268201100010C, HHSN268201100011C, and HHSN268201100012C), R01HL087641, R01HL59367 and R01HL086694; National Human Genome Research Institute contract U01HG004402; and National Institutes of Health contract HHSN268200625226C. Infrastructure was partly supported by Grant Number UL1RR025005, a component of the National Institutes of Health and NIH Roadmap for Medical Research. This support has not altered our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization: FB IR THB. Data curation: MHC JBH. Formal analysis: FB. Funding acquisition: EKS JDC MHC SML. Investigation: EKS JDC. Methodology: FB IR. Project administration: THB EKS JDC. Resources: THB EKS JDC. Software: FB IR. Supervision: IR THB. Validation: FB RBS. Visualization: FB. Writing – original draft: FB THB. Writing – review & editing: FB THB JEH SML MMP.