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COVID-19 presents with a wide range of severity, from asymptomatic in some individuals to fatal in others. Based on a study of 1,051,032 23andMe research participants, we report genetic and nongenetic associations with testing positive for SARS-CoV-2, respiratory symptoms and hospitalization. Using trans-ancestry genome-wide association studies, we identified a strong association between blood type and COVID-19 diagnosis, as well as a gene-rich locus on chromosome 3p21.31 that is more strongly associated with outcome severity. Hospitalization risk factors include advancing age, male sex, obesity, lower socioeconomic status, non-European ancestry and preexisting cardiometabolic conditions. While non-European ancestry was a significant risk factor for hospitalization after adjusting for sociodemographics and preexisting health conditions, we did not find evidence that these two primary genetic associations explain risk differences between populations for severe COVID-19 outcomes.

According to historical records of transatlantic slavery, traders forcibly deported an estimated 12.5 million people from ports along the Atlantic coastline of Africa between the 16th and 19th centuries, with global impacts reaching to the present day, more than a century and a half after slavery’s abolition. Such records have fueled a broad understanding of the forced migration from Africa to the Americas yet remain underexplored in concert with genetic data. Here, we analyzed genotype array data from 50,281 research participants, which—combined with historical shipping documents—illustrate that the current genetic landscape of the Americas is largely concordant with expectations derived from documentation of slave voyages. For instance, genetic connections between people in slave trading regions of Africa and disembarkation regions of the Americas generally mirror the proportion of individuals forcibly moved between those regions. While some discordances can be explained by additional records of deportations within the Americas, other discordances yield insights into variable survival rates and timing of arrival of enslaved people from specific regions of Africa. Furthermore, the greater contribution of African women to the gene pool compared to African men varies across the Americas, consistent with literature documenting regional differences in slavery practices. This investigation of the transatlantic slave trade, which is broad in scope in terms of both datasets and analyses, establishes genetic links between individuals in the Americas and populations across Atlantic Africa, yielding a more comprehensive understanding of the African roots of peoples of the Americas.

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Daytime napping is a common, heritable behavior, but its genetic basis and causal relationship with cardiometabolic health remain unclear. Here, we perform a genome-wide association study of self-reported daytime napping in the UK Biobank (n = 452,633) and identify 123 loci of which 61 replicate in the 23andMe research cohort (n = 541,333). Findings include missense variants in established drug targets for sleep disorders (HCRTR1, HCRTR2), genes with roles in arousal (TRPC6, PNOC), and genes suggesting an obesity-hypersomnolence pathway (PNOC, PATJ). Association signals are concordant with accelerometer-measured daytime inactivity duration and 33 loci colocalize with loci for other sleep phenotypes. Cluster analysis identifies three distinct clusters of nap-promoting mechanisms with heterogeneous associations with cardiometabolic outcomes. Mendelian randomization shows potential causal links between more frequent daytime napping and higher blood pressure and waist circumference.