Doctoral Dissertation Research: Children’s Experiences and Perceptions of Water Insecurity

作为促进儿童发展的最基本的文化活动所必需的生物必需品和资源，缺水或水质差从根本上影响了儿童的日常生活，并对他们的健康和福祉产生了深远的影响。为此，家庭采取了与水有关的活动和应对战略，目的是维护儿童和家中其他人的健康。虽然儿童往往是这些活动和战略的组成部分，但目前的研究重点是成年人维持自身健康的能力。这给我们留下了对水不安全的不完整和成人偏见的理解。这篇博士论文的目的是研究儿童如何体验和感知他们的日常生活和幸福感将受到家庭用水不安全的影响。除了培训一名人类学研究生外，该项目还对(当地和全球)公共卫生有影响，因为缺乏以儿童为中心的关于水不安全的研究，导致政策和干预措施知之甚少。生态文化理论认为，儿童对日常生活的参与是对他们发展最重要的影响。这个项目通过考虑严重的资源限制，如水的不安全，如何塑造儿童的日常生活和影响儿童的福祉，来推进生态文化理论。这项研究与30名6-11岁的儿童及其父母合作，使用对话式的半结构化访谈、直接观察和绘画来了解儿童在使用、消费和管理水方面的角色和责任；儿童参与哪些活动来解决水不足或不安全的情况；以及儿童如何感知他们的幸福感将受到与水相关的角色、责任和应对策略的影响。通过捕捉照顾者和儿童的视角，这项研究进一步考察了儿童如何实现对他们的期望和责任，以支持水不安全的家庭。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。

As a biological necessity and resource essential to the most basic cultural activities that promote child development, water’s absence or poor quality fundamentally shapes child routines and has profound consequences on their health and well-being. In response, households adopt water related activities and coping strategies aimed at maintaining the health of children and others in home. While children are often integral to these activities and strategies, current research focuses on an adult’s ability to maintain their own well-being. This leaves us with an incomplete and adult biased understanding of water insecurity. The purpose of this doctoral dissertation is to examine how children experience and perceive their daily routines and well-being to be impacted by household water insecurity. In addition to training a graduate student in anthropological science, the project has implications for public health (local and global), as policy and intervention are poorly informed by a lack of child centered research on water insecurity. Ecocultural Theory argues that children’s participation in daily structured routines is the single most important influence on their development. This project advances Ecocultural Theory by considering how severe resource limitations, such as water insecurity, shape child routines and impact child well being. Working with a group of 30 children, ages 6-11, and their parents, the research uses conversational semi-structured interviews, direct observations, and drawings to understand children’s roles and responsibilities related to the use, consumption, and management of water; what activities children engage in to address situations of insufficient or unsafe water; and how children perceive their well-being to be impacted by their water related roles, responsibilities, and coping strategies. By capturing both caregiver and child perspectives, this study further examines how children realize the expectations and responsibilities placed on them to support the water insecure home.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.