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Alternative Pathways to Well-Being

实现幸福的替代途径

基本信息

批准号：
1758472
负责人：
China Scherz
金额：
$ 11.05万
依托单位：
University of Virginia Main Campus
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Standard Grant
财政年份：
2018
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2018-03-15 至 2019-08-31
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1758472&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
Alternative Pathways Well Being

项目摘要

Narratives of personal change often include accounts of spiritual experiences. The research supported by this award will investigate if and how these experiences actually affect people's lives going forward. Anthropologists have studied how cultural beliefs and practices produce spiritual experiences but less is known about the long-term effects of the experiences that informants describe. Do these experiences matter, and if so, how? Answering this question is important for understanding how and why people make major changes in their lives. These changes could include mundane choices of school or career, or weighty choices such as whether to stop using drugs or join a terrorist organization. Understanding the full range of factors involved in personal change is critical for developing interventions, counseling programs, and policies that will help Americans to live healthy, safe, and productive lives. University of Virginia anthropologist, Dr. China Scherz, and her team will investigate this question by studying the effects of spiritual experience in the lives of people attempting to make a major life change. Building on two years of preliminary research, they have chosen to focus the final phase of their study on recovery from alcohol addiction. The research will be conducted in Uganda because spiritual experiences are more commonly foregrounded in Ugandan recovery narratives due to the limited options for biomedically based addiction treatment. Over the course of a year, the researchers will will gather data with qualitative ethnographic observations, semi-structured interviews, and mapping exercises. They will follow 25-30 people who have tried to stop drinking, focusing on the effects of spiritual experiences in their lives over time. Results of this research provide a model for including spiritual experiences in social scientific understandings of life transformation, which will be generalizable to many United States populations. The study will also provide the first extended analysis of contemporary modes of conceptualizing and addressing problem-drinking in an African context. Poverty, access to schooling, and diseases including HIV, tuberculosis, cancer, and other non-communicable diseases in many sub-Saharan African countries have been increasingly linked to high levels of alcohol consumption. Addressing these problems is important to U. S. interests in global health and development. This study will highlight novel and cost-effective ways to capitalize on local paradigms for addressing problems related to substance abuse and mental health. Dr. Scherz's ties with academics and policy-makers at leading national psychiatric and medical facilities in Uganda and in the United States will facilitate the dissemination of results and the translation of the study's findings into meaningful program and policy recommendations. This study will also help to develop a cohort of researchers working in this area by providing opportunities for Ugandans and U.S. undergraduates to develop their research skills and capacities through hands-on practice and mentorship.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

对个人变化的叙述通常包括对精神经历的描述。该奖项支持的研究将调查这些经历是否以及如何实际影响人们未来的生活。人类学家研究了文化信仰和实践如何产生精神体验，但对告密者描述的体验的长期影响知之甚少。这些经历重要吗？如果重要，又是如何重要的？回答这个问题对于理解人们如何以及为什么要在他们的生活中做出重大改变很重要。这些变化可能包括对学校或职业的平凡选择，也可能包括是否停止使用毒品或加入恐怖组织等重大选择。了解个人改变涉及的各种因素，对于制定干预措施、咨询计划和政策，帮助美国人过上健康、安全和富有成效的生活至关重要。弗吉尼亚大学人类学家中国·谢尔茨博士和她的团队将通过研究精神体验在试图做出重大生活改变的人的生活中的影响来研究这个问题。在两年的初步研究基础上，他们选择将研究的最后阶段集中在酒精成瘾的康复上。这项研究将在乌干达进行，因为由于基于生物医学的成瘾治疗选择有限，精神体验在乌干达的康复叙事中更常见地被突出。在一年的时间里，研究人员将通过定性的人种学观察、半结构化访谈和绘图练习来收集数据。他们将跟踪25-30名试图戒酒的人，重点关注随着时间的推移精神体验在他们生活中的影响。这项研究的结果为将精神体验纳入对生活转变的社会科学理解提供了一个模式，这将适用于许多美国人。这项研究还将首次对在非洲背景下对饮酒问题进行概念化和解决问题的当代模式进行扩展分析。许多撒哈拉以南非洲国家的贫困、受教育机会以及艾滋病毒、结核病、癌症和其他非传染性疾病等疾病，越来越多地与高饮酒联系在一起。解决这些问题对美国在全球健康和发展方面的利益很重要。这项研究将突出利用当地范例解决与药物滥用和精神健康有关的问题的新颖和成本效益高的方法。谢尔茨博士与乌干达和美国领先的国家精神病学和医疗机构的学者和政策制定者的关系将促进结果的传播，并将研究结果转化为有意义的项目和政策建议。这项研究还将帮助培养一批在这一领域工作的研究人员，为乌干达人和美国本科生提供机会，通过实践和指导来发展他们的研究技能和能力。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。