Doctoral Dissertation Research: Culture, Change & Chronic Stress in Lowland Bolivia

佛罗里达大学的博士生艾伦·舒尔茨，在克拉伦斯·格拉弗利博士的指导下，将对压力和社会文化变化之间的关系进行研究。这项研究将在玻利维亚低地的一群采食农民Tsimane中进行，他们正处于接触市场和非传统文化的早期阶段。研究人员将试图解决这个难题，为什么提斯曼人的短期压力生物标志物和相关的不良健康结果是已知最低的，尽管20年来市场曝光率不断增加，这通常与压力增加和健康状况恶化有关。本研究将采用多种社会科学方法，包括对当地经验的长期参与观察，以及对市场暴露和社会分层的解释，来探讨这些主题。重点是社会心理压力途径和文化在压力源和抵抗资源之间平衡转变中的作用。结构化人种学将被用来隔离社会地位、社会关系和物质生活方式的文化模式。该项目在一项流行病学调查中达到高潮，该调查测试了个人信仰和行为与共同理想的关系，这些与压力过程和结果（如血压和回顾性压力生物标志物毛发皮质醇）有关。该项目还包括对当地本体论对市场一体化影响的创新性调查，以及对当地研究经济的影响的检查，这是由于提斯曼人作为世界上最后一个相对孤立的人口之一，几十年来一直接待着研究人员。这项研究具有创新性，因为它将文化和意义与迄今为止对慢性压力和相关健康状况不佳的人群的个人生物学和健康结果联系起来。更一般地说，孤立文化和意义在限制市场暴露期间的慢性压力方面所起的作用，将为其他人群的慢性压力调查提供其他领域。支持研究也支持了研究生的教育。

University of Florida doctoral candidate, Alan Schultz, supervised by Dr. Clarence Gravlee, will undertake research on the relationship between stress and socio-cultural change. The research will be carried out among a group of foraging-farmers, the Tsimane' of lowland Bolivia, who are at an early stage of exposure to markets and non-traditional cultures. The researcher will try to solve the puzzle of why Tsimane' have some of the lowest known rates of short-term stress biomarkers and related adverse health outcomes despite two decades of increasing market exposure, which is usually associated with increased stress and worsening health. The study will take up these topics using a variety of social science methods, including long-term participant observation focused on local experiences and interpretations of market exposure and social stratification. Key points of focus are the psychosocial stress pathway and culture's role in shifts of the balance between stressors and resistive resources. Structured ethnography will be used to isolate cultural models of social status, social relations and material lifestyle. The project culminates in an epidemiologic survey that tests individual beliefs and behavior against shared ideals linking these to the stress process and outcomes such as blood pressure and a retrospective stress biomarker, hair cortisol. The project also includes an innovative investigation of the impact of local ontology on the effects of market integration and an examination of the impacts of the local research economy that has resulted from the fact that as one of the world's last relatively isolated populations, the Tsimane' have hosted researchers for decades.The research is innovative because it links culture and meaning to individual biological and health outcomes in a population that has so far remained resistant to chronic stress and related poor health. More generally, isolation of the roles that culture and meaning have played in limiting chronic stress during market exposure will suggest alternative areas of inquiry on chronic stress in other populations. Supporting the research also supports the education of a graduate student.