Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant: Pathways Toward Understanding the Psychosocial Dimensions of Reproductive Health

埃默里大学的博士生，Tyralynn弗雷泽，由卡罗尔沃思曼博士监督，将进行种族，文化，经济地位和居住地对生殖健康结果的相对影响的研究。研究人员将同时关注种族和地方，调查当地怀孕观念的相似性和差异是否受到种族和社会经济归属的影响。这项研究将在居住在格鲁吉亚州一个县的妇女的人口样本中进行。研究人员将首先采用文化共识模型，看看怀孕行为的文化模型是否因种族而异，其次确定与当地接受的怀孕模型的相对一致性是否能预测压力水平和早产。种族是一个经常使用，但往往在理论上的范畴。本研究运用领域分析方法和文化共识模型，试图在怀孕行为的背景下，将种族作为一个假定的文化群体提出质疑。这项研究很重要，因为通过强调文化定义对生殖健康行为的影响，它可能有助于理解人口因素或社会经济地位无法完全解释的负面出生结果模式。如果提出的假设成立，那么这项工作的更广泛的意义将是了解如何出现新的怀孕的信念和行为可能会产生代际差异，在美国和其他工业化国家的移民人口的生殖健康差异。

Emory University doctoral student, Tyralynn Frazier, supervised by Dr. Carol Worthman, will undertake research on the relative influence of race, culture, economic status, and place of residence on reproductive health outcomes. The researcher will simultaneously focus on both race and place by investigating if similarities and differences in localized pregnancy ideas are shaped by racial and socioeconomic belonging.The research will be carried out among a population-based sample of women living in a county in the state of Georgia. The researcher will employ cultural consensus modeling first, to see if cultural models of pregnancy behaviors differ by race, and second to determine if relative consonance with locally accepted pregnancy models predicts stress levels and pre-term births. Race is a frequently used, but often under-theorized category. Using domain analysis methods and cultural consensus modeling, this study aims to put race as an assumed cultural grouping into question in the context of pregnancy behaviors. This research is important because by emphasizing culturally defined influences on reproductive health behaviors it may contribute to understanding negative birth outcome patterns that are not fully explained by demographic factors or socioeconomic status. If the hypotheses presented hold true then a broader implication of this work would be to understand how the emergence of new pregnancy beliefs and behaviors may produce generational differences in reproductive health disparities in immigrant populations in the United States and other industrialized countries.