The CHARGE Consortium includes four population-based studies with data on FEV1 and FEV1/FVC: the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study, the Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS), the Framingham Heart Study (FHS) and the Rotterdam Study (RS). Details are provided in the companion paper in this issue from the CHARGE Consortium30. Given differences between the analysis approaches for GWAS adopted by the SpiroMeta and CHARGE consortia, the CHARGE analyses were undertaken using the analysis approach adopted by the SpiroMeta consortium (21,209 individuals; larger than the sample in the companion paper, which excluded subjects with missing or incomplete pack-years data). We also included 883 population-based subjects from the Health 2000 study in the stage 2b analysis.
