EVALUATION OF HINF-I-GENERATED VNTR PROFILE FREQUENCIES DETERMINED USING VARIOUS ETHNIC DATABASES

Concerns have been raised about hypothetical problems arising from the use of statistics for determining the likelihood of occurrence of DNA profiles for forensic purposes. A major contention is that reference databases based on subgroups of a major population category rather tha n on general (or major) population groups, might yield large differenc es in the estimated likelihood of occurrence of DNA profiles. This hyp othetical issue is based on the assertion by some people that the diff erences among subgroups within a race would be greater than between ra ces (at least for forensic purposes). To evaluate the effects of the a bove concern the likelihood of occurrence of 615 Hinf I-generated targ et DNA profiles was estimated using fixed bin frequencies from various ethnic databases and the multiplication rule. Based on the data in th is study, differences in allele frequencies at a particular locus do n ot have substantial effects on VNTR profile frequency estimates when s ubgroup reference databases from within a major population group are c ompared. In contrast, the greatest variation in statistical estimates occurs across-major population groups. Therefore, the assertion, by so me critics that the differences among subgroups within a race would be greater than between races (at least for forensic purposes), is unfou nded. The data in the study support that comparisons across major popu lation groups provide valid estimates of DNA profile frequencies witho ut forensically significant consequences. The data do not support the need for alternate procedures, such as the ceiling principle approach, for deriving statistical estimates of DNA profile frequencies.