Modeling binary familial data using Gaussian copula

Abstract

Modeling binary familial data has been a challenging task due to the dependence among family members and the constraints imposed on the joint probability distribution of the binary responses. This paper investigates some useful familial dependence structures and proposes analyzing binary familial data usingGaussian copula model.Advantages of this approach are discussed aswell as some computational details. An numerical example is also presented with an aim to show the capability of Gaussian copula model in more sophisticated data analysis