Doctoral Dissertation Research: A bioarchaeological examination of early institutional services and juvenile care and health

青少年是一个特别脆弱的群体，他们的健康受到他们所得到的照料的严重影响。这种护理是健康的一个主要决定因素，因为早年的压力会影响一生甚至几代人的健康结果。历史上出现了许多提供这种护理的机构，包括提供社会和保健服务的修道院等宗教机构。这篇博士论文的研究项目调查的影响，这种服务对青少年健康的比较骨骼证据的压力在青少年从寺院和非寺院网站。这项研究提供了历史背景，以了解这些机构如何以及为什么幸存下来，以及它们今天如何运作，包括访问和有效性如何随年龄，地位或位置等因素而变化。该项目有助于本科生和研究生在可转移实验室技能方面的培训，以及开放数据项目和科学推广工作。（i）提出一个扩大的青少年照料生物考古模式，充分考虑到社会文化背景，适用于各种生物和社会年龄类别的青少年，（二）随后证明该模型的有效性，将其应用到一个复杂的护理网络，以及（三）以确定如何早期的社会和卫生服务在网络的护理影响青少年健康。护理模式的生物考古学使用一种逐步的方法，包括诊断和分析病理和压力指标，个人/群体的生物和社会护理需求以及护理的性质，以及护理者和接受者的代理。在这个框架内，研究人员比较了三个骨骼收集（城市修道院，农村修道院和非修道院）之间的骨骼应力指标，死亡率数据和文化数据。该项目的结果可以证明儿童保育框架的扩展生物考古学的适用性，并有助于通过更彻底地描述其早期历史和对青少年的影响来理解社会和卫生服务。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并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，被认为值得支持。

Juveniles are an especially vulnerable group whose health is strongly influenced by the care they receive. Such care is a major health determinant, as early life stress can influence lifetime and even intergenerational health outcomes. Numerous institutions arose historically to provide this care, including religious institutions like monasteries that offered social and health services. This doctoral dissertation research project investigates the impact that such services had on juvenile health by comparing skeletal evidence of stress in juveniles from monastic and non-monastic sites. The research provides historical context for understanding how and why these institutions survived and how they operate today, including how access and effectiveness vary with factors such as age, status, or location. The project contributes to undergraduate and graduate training in transferable laboratory skills, as well as to open data projects and science outreach efforts.This study has three primary objectives: (i) to propose an expanded bioarchaeological model of juvenile care which fully considers sociocultural context and is applicable to juveniles of a range of biological and social age categories, (ii) to subsequently demonstrate the model’s efficacy by applying it to a complex care network, and (iii) to determine how early social and health services functioned in the network of care to impact juvenile health. Bioarchaeology of care models use a step-by-step approach which includes the diagnosis and analysis of pathological and stress indicators, biological and social care needs of the individual/group and the nature of that care, and the agency of both the caregivers and receivers. Within this framework, the researchers compare skeletal stress indicators, mortality data, and cultural data between three skeletal collections (urban monastic, rural monastic, and non-monastic). Results from this project can demonstrate the applicability of an expanded bioarchaeology of childcare framework as well as contribute to the understanding of social and health services by more thoroughly characterizing their early history and impact on juveniles across time.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.