Power divergence test statistics for testing Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium

The Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) model states that allele and genotype frequencies in a population will remain constant for generations in the absence of evolutionary effects. A goodness-of-fit test can be used to test if a population is significantly different from the expectations of HWE. Pearson statistics are commonly used in goodness-of-fit tests for testing the HWE. In this paper, a simulation study is carried out to evaluate the performance of power divergence statistics under different sample sizes, effect sizes and minor allele frequencies. A real genotype dataset is also analysed to compare the results of several power divergence test statistics.