Exploring the links between biodiverse foods, nutritional quality, and food security

社会、行为和经济科学理事会提供博士后研究金，为最近的博士毕业生提供获得额外培训的机会，在知名科学家的赞助下获得研究经验，并在本科和研究生培训之外拓宽他们的科学视野。博士后奖学金还旨在帮助新的科学家指导他们的研究工作，跨越传统的学科领域，并利用独特的研究资源，地点和设施，包括在国外的地点。这个博士后奖学金支持在人类学科学，环境和人类健康的交叉点上升的跨学科学者。在热带地区，对野生食物系统的依赖和不可持续的狩猎威胁着粮食安全和长期生计，并增加了野生动物向人类传播疾病的风险。 尽管狩猎野生动物对人类健康和粮食安全构成风险，但狩猎野生动物问题仍然是保护的目标，但很少在公共卫生和发展战略中得到考虑。 这项研究的目的是了解营养和文化在推动西非肉食（来自热带森林中狩猎的非驯养哺乳动物，爬行动物，两栖动物和鸟类的肉类）消费方面的作用。博士后研究员是一名环境科学方面的妇女，将接受营养生态学和文化人类学方面的培训。 通过结合实地和实验室研究，该研究员将被介绍到独特的研究资源，网站和设施，将促进美国和尼日利亚机构之间的国际合作。 这些活动将为学生和尼日利亚科学家提供独特的指导和培训机会。这项研究将进一步科学的进步，通过破译的作用，膳食质量的肉类，并把这个问题纳入发展和公共卫生政策的范围。研究结果将对本研究系统以外的国家健康、繁荣和福利产生影响。 例如，了解丛林肉消费的驱动因素有助于制定政策开发补充食物来源并防止野生动物出现传染病。该领域的研究活动将对人类健康、濒危物种和脆弱的栖息地产生直接和间接的好处。 这项研究将营养学和生态学的方法与社会科学的定量和定性驱动方法相结合，以衡量尼日利亚狩猎社区中肉类在确定饮食选择和维护粮食安全方面的独特作用。 该项目将通过以下方式产生原始数据：1）野生和家养动物食物资源的比较营养分析; 2）对家庭饮食多样性和粮食不安全的半结构化调查进行定量分析; 3）对焦点小组讨论、关键知情人访谈、参与者观察和讲故事进行定性分析，以评估狩猎和消费的文化背景。 营养成分将与多种文化背景下的饮食选择和粮食安全相关，为人类文化和营养科学之间的相互作用提供新的见解。野生肉类消费是一个紧迫的环境和健康问题，研究结果将为综合建议提供基础，这些建议将为食品安全，公共卫生和保护政策提供信息。该项目涉及多层次的国际合作，由NSF国际科学与工程办公室共同资助。

The Directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences offers postdoctoral research fellowships to provide opportunities for recent doctoral graduates to obtain additional training, to gain research experience under the sponsorship of established scientists, and to broaden their scientific horizons beyond their undergraduate and graduate training. Postdoctoral fellowships are further designed to assist new scientists to direct their research efforts across traditional disciplinary lines and to avail themselves of unique research resources, sites, and facilities, including at foreign locations. This postdoctoral fellowship award supports a rising interdisciplinary scholar at the intersection of the anthropological sciences, environment and human health. In the tropics, reliance on wild food systems and unsustainable hunting threatens food security and livelihoods long-term, and increases risk of disease transmission from wildlife to humans. Despite the risks to human health and food security, the issue of wild game hunting remains a target of conservation, but is rarely considered in public health and development strategies. The aim of this research is to understand the role of nutrition and culture in driving consumption of bushmeat (meat from non-domesticated mammals, reptiles, amphibians and birds hunted for food in tropical forests) in West Africa. The postdoctoral research fellow, a woman in environmental science, will be trained in nutritional ecology and cultural anthropology. Through combined field and laboratory research, the fellow will be introduced to unique research resources, sites, and facilities that will foster international collaborations between institutions in the United States and Nigeria. These activities will provide unique mentoring and training opportunities for students and Nigerian scientists. This research will further the progress of science by deciphering the role of dietary quality of bushmeat, and bringing the issue into the scope of development and public health policy. Results will have implications for national health, prosperity, and welfare beyond this study system. For example, understanding the drivers of bushmeat consumption assists policy in developing complementary food sources and preventing emergence of infectious diseases from wildlife. Research activities in the field will have both direct and indirect benefits to human health, endangered species, and vulnerable habitats. This research integrates methods from nutrition and ecology, with both quantitatively and qualitatively driven methods from the social sciences, to measure the unique role of bushmeat in determining dietary choices and maintaining food security in Nigerian hunting communities. The project will generate original data through: 1) comparative nutritional assays of wild and domestic animal food resources; 2) quantitative analyses of semi-structured surveys of household dietary diversity and food insecurity; and 3) qualitative analyses of focus group discussions, key informant interviews, participant observation, and storytelling to assess the cultural contexts of hunting and consumption. Nutritional composition will be related to dietary choices and food security across multiple cultural contexts to provide new insights into interactions between human culture and nutritional science. Wild meat consumption is a pressing environmental and health concern, and findings will provide the basis for integrative recommendations that will inform food security, public health, and conservation policies. The project involves international collaboration at multiple levels, and is co-funded by the NSF Office of International Science and Engineering.