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

水是促进儿童发展的最基本文化活动所必需的生物必需品和资源，水的缺乏或质量差从根本上决定了儿童的日常生活，并对其健康和福祉产生深远影响。作为回应，家庭采取与水有关的活动和应对战略，旨在保持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福祉的能力。这使我们对水不安全的理解不完整，而且带有成人偏见。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福祉受到家庭水不安全的影响。除了培训人类学研究生外，该项目还对公共卫生（地方和全球）产生影响，因为缺乏以儿童为中心的水不安全研究，政策和干预措施信息不足。生态文化理论认为，儿童参与日常结构化的惯例是对他们发展最重要的影响。该项目通过考虑严重的资源限制（如水不安全）如何塑造儿童日常生活并影响儿童福祉来推进生态文化理论。与一组30名儿童，年龄6-11岁，和他们的父母，研究使用半结构化的访谈，直接观察，和图纸，以了解儿童的角色和责任有关的使用，消费和水的管理;什么活动的儿童从事，以解决水不足或不安全的情况;以及儿童如何看待他们的福祉受到他们与水有关的角色、责任和应对策略的影响。通过捕捉照顾者和儿童的角度来看，这项研究进一步探讨了儿童如何实现的期望和责任放在他们身上，以支持水不安全的home.This奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

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.