Multidimensional Analysis of Quality of Life

摘要在广泛的学术和政策导向领域，研究人员在定义和测量生活质量(QOL)的具体方面取得了进展。本研究将开发一个涵盖多个维度的生活质量综合指数。这一领域的进一步研究很重要，因为世界各地的土著群体正越来越多地融入全球经济，这对他们的文化、心理和身体健康都有影响。这个项目将在玻利维亚低地的齐马尼人中调查这些问题，这是一个美洲印第安人的觅食人口--正在经历重大的文化和经济转型的园艺家。研究团队将使用认知人类学的文化共识方法，开发一种针对文化的生活质量测量方法，并将该测量与其他常用的生活质量指标整合，包括经济成功、营养状况、心理压力的生物标记物，形成一个全面、多维、客观的测量方法。此外，研究人员将评估主观和客观生活质量测量之间的关系。数据将从12个村庄(N=600)的12岁以上的个人收集。数据将在两年内收集。这项研究使用了人类学中几个子学科的工具，包括文化和谐或成功实现当地定义的高质量生活方式标准，经济变量，如收入、消费和财富，短期和长期营养状况，心理压力的生理测量，以及世界卫生组织为跨文化使用而开发的主观生活质量测量。在构建全面、客观的生活质量测量时将采用共同的衡量标准，并将使用计量经济学模型来探索客观和主观生活质量之间的关系，以及个人、家庭和村级的相关因素。这项研究将有助于对生活质量进行更全面的评估，为围绕全球进程的局部影响的学术和公众辩论提供信息；将弥合人类学中客观和主观状态之间的笛卡尔鸿沟；并将为将当地文化知识纳入生活质量研究的人类学贡献提供基础。这项研究的更广泛影响包括建立一个长期的现场站点，为来自美国和玻利维亚的学生提供培训和指导研究经验。

AbstractResearchers in a wide range of academic and policy-oriented fields have made progress in defining and measuring specific aspects of quality of life (QOL). This research will develop an integrated index that captures multiple dimensions of QOL. Further research in this area is important because indigenous groups around the world are becoming increasingly incorporated into a global economy, with implications for their cultural, psychological, and physical well-being. This project will investigate these issues among the Tsimane' of lowland Bolivia, an Amerindian population of foragers-horticulturalists undergoing substantial cultural and economic transition. The team of researchers will develop a culturally-specific measure of QOL using cultural consensus methods from cognitive anthropology, and will integrate this measure with other commonly applied indicators of quality of life, including economic success, nutritional status, biomarker of psychological stress, into a comprehensive, multi-dimensional, objective measure. In addition the researchers will evaluate the relationship between subjective and objective measures of quality of life.Data will be collected from individuals over 12 years of age in 12 villages (N=600). Data will be collected over a two-year period. The research uses tools from several sub-disciplines in anthropology, including cultural consonance, or success in achieving locally-defined norms for a high-quality lifestyle, economic variables such as income, consumption, and wealth, short and long-term nutritional status, a physiological measure of psychological stress, and a subjective measure of QOL developed for cross- cultural use by the World Health Organization. A common metric will be employed in the construction of a comprehensive, objective measure of QOL, and econometric models will be used to explore the relationships between objective and subjective QOL, and its individual, household, and village-level correlates. The research will contribute a more comprehensive assessment of QOL that can inform scholarly and public debate surrounding the local impact of global processes; will bridge the Cartesian divide between objective and subjective states in anthropology; and will provide the basis for an anthropological contribution that integrates local cultural knowledge into QOL research. The broader impacts of the research include the establishment of a long term field site that will provide training and mentored research experience for students from the U.S. and from Bolivia.