Collaborative Research: HSD: The Living Environment and Human Health Over the Millennia

观察家们长期以来一直注意到地理和社会表现之间的联系，特别是热带地区健康状况不佳和贫困的持续存在。尽管这种关系已经确立，但潜在的机制是有争议的。一些研究人员强调生态施加的限制，这会影响疾病环境、粮食生产和一个国家的经济发展潜力。另一种机制强调文化和制度，人类的创造使人们能够适应和塑造他们的环境，以造福于他们。生活在发展中国家的数亿人未来的健康和生活质量取决于对这些机制的了解。遥远的过去和最近的过去为研究这些问题提供了一个极好的实验室。在过去的10,000年里，人类的健康和福利发生了巨大的变化，从觅食到耕种，从农村到城市，从相对孤立到全球探索和殖民，最终从自流商店到工业化。承担这一跨学科研究项目的研究人员将使用骨骼来评估这一巨大时间跨度的健康状况。他们将利用各种来源来准备衡量环境或人们生活背景的措施。将重点放在欧洲和地中海地区，研究人员将开发模型，解释健康作为生态和社会经济变量的函数的变化。生态变量包括气候、地形、土壤、植被、取水途径和地形性质，而社会经济变量包括聚落规模、生存模式、使用中的技术、政府形式、社会分层程度和存在的不平等程度、住房性质以及是否有纪念性建筑。项目研究人员将开发回归模型来检验生态因素对健康没有影响的零假设。该项目将很少进行一致研究的领域统一起来，包括经济学、物理人类学、历史学、考古学、气候史、地理学和工程学。来自这些领域的50多名代表，从研究生到杰出的教授，将通过项目总部和互联网进行协调。该项目的时间和地理广度将得到对男子、妇女和儿童健康状况的分析的补充。参与该项目的研究生将成为该项目出版物的研究伙伴和共同作者。来自美国、欧洲和地中海不同种族的男性和女性将作为研究人员参与其中。预计该项目的一个重要遗产将是形成一个由熟悉大型合作项目的组织和方法的青年跨学科学者组成的国际社区。整个社会将受益于人类适应自然灾害、气候变化、流行病、新技术和过去几千年来出现的政治组织类型的成功(和失败)战略的新知识。2005财年NSF人类和社会动力学竞赛(HSD)颁发的奖项支持这一项目。NSF的所有董事和办公室都参与了HSD竞赛和HSD奖项组合的协调管理。

Observers have long noted a connection between geography and social performance, especially the persistence of poor health and poverty in the tropics. Although the relationship is well established, the underlying mechanism is controversial. Some researchers emphasize the constraints imposed by ecology, which affect the disease environment, food production, and a country's potential for economic development. An alternative mechanism emphasizes culture and institutions, whereby human creations enable people to adapt and to shape their environment for their benefit. The future health and quality of life of hundreds of millions of people living in developing countries depends on knowledge of these mechanisms. The distant and recent past provide an excellent laboratory for investigating these issues. Human health and welfare have varied enormously over the past 10,000 years, with transitions from foraging to farming, from rural to urban settlements, from relative isolation to global exploration and colonization, and ultimately from the artesian shop to industrialization. The researchers undertaking this interdisciplinary research project will use skeletons to assess health over this enormous span of time. They will employ a variety of sources to prepare measures of the environment or the context in which people lived. With a focus on Europe and the Mediterranean, the investigators will develop models that explain variations in health as a function of both ecological and socioeconomic variables. Ecological variables include climate; topography; soils; vegetation; access to water; and the nature of the terrain, while socioeconomic variables include settlement size; patterns of subsistence; technology in use; form of government; the degree of stratification and inequality that existed in the society; the nature of housing; and the presence or absence of monumental architecture. Project researchers will develop regression models to test the null hypothesis that ecological factors had no influence on health.The project unites fields that rarely conduct research in concert, including economics, physical anthropology, history, archaeology, climate history, geography, and engineering. More than 50 representatives from these fields ranging from graduate students to distinguished professors will be coordinated through a project headquarters and via the internet. The chronological and geographic breadth of this project will be complemented by analysis of the health of men, women, and children. Graduate students working on this project will become research partners and coauthors in publications that flow from the project. Men and women from diverse ethnic groups across the U.S., Europe, and the Mediterranean will participate as researchers. One important legacy of this project is expected to be the formation of an international community of young interdisciplinary scholars who will be familiar with the organization and methods of large collaborative projects. Society at large will benefit from new knowledge of successful (and failed) human strategies for adapting to natural catastrophes, climate change, epidemics, new technologies, and types of political organization that have unfolded over the past several millennia. An award resulting from the FY 2005 NSF-wide competition on Human and Social Dynamics (HSD) supports this project. All NSF directorates and offices are involved in the coordinated management of the HSD competition and the portfolio of HSD awards.