is a non-profit effort conducted at the University of Southern California to collect the basic characteristics of all twins born in California regardless of where they are living currently. Click on the left to learn about the nature and goals of the program and who is eligible to participate.
Fraternal twins may seem to share the same placenta and identical twins may seem not to.
About one in every 50 Americans is a twin, and about one in every three twins is an identical twin. Identical twins are fairly evenly dispersed in the population, no matter when, where, or to whom they were born.
It is possible to identify twins who are similar with respect to genetic inheritance but not the environment, or those who are genetically different but similar with respect to environmental experience.
Our first questionnaire was sent to twins who in 1992 were over the age of 37.
