The Effect of Mexican Anti-Poverty Program on Stress

描述（由申请人提供）： 该申请为加州大学伯克利分校和墨西哥库埃纳瓦卡墨西哥国家公共卫生研究所 (INSP) 的国际科学研究发展奖 (IRSDA) 寻求资助，重点关注经济学、人口学以及人类发展的社会和生物学方面。 该候选人名叫 Lia C. Fernald，目前是加州大学伯克利分校商业与经济研究所的博士后研究员，此前曾获得该校博士学位。拥有临床医学学士学位和专注于医疗保健管理的工商管理硕士学位。 IRSDA 将允许候选人进行一段时间的指导研究，为她在国际公共卫生领域追求成功的独立研究生涯做好准备。 候选人的长期目标是利用高质量的评估和研究作为工具来制定有效和可持续的计划，促进发展中国家积极的社会变革。 她的目标是建立对大规模、基于社区的扶贫项目进行研究和干预至关重要的技能和知识基础。她的目标是 I) 获得经济学和人口学理论和方法方面的专业知识； 2) 获得用于分析多层次、复杂、纵向公共卫生和经济数据的先进定量方法的专业知识； 3）了解与社会经济地位（SES）相关的健康心理学和人类发展； 4) 将人口和计量经济模型以及人类发展的知识应用于社会经济指标的制定和健康结果的分析。她计划通过直接课程、一对一教程和指导研究项目的结合来实现这些目标。 主要基于动物研究，一些研究人员怀疑压力敏感的生理系统的活动可能介导SES与健康和行为结果之间的关联。 尽管研究人员开始研究生理应激反应与 SES 之间的并发关系，但尚无针对人类的研究能够直接解决因果关系问题。 费尔纳德博士将提出一个关键问题：社会经济地位的改善是否会影响应激生理学基础和调节方面的变化。她将利用墨西哥一项大型、随机、对照减贫试验（PROGRESA 计划）来调查减贫计划对儿童生理压力活动的影响。 她还将使用实验模型开始确定影响 PROGRESA 对应激反应性影响的因素。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This application seeks funding for an International Scientific Research Development Award (IRSDA), with the focus on economics, demography, and the social and biological aspects of human development at the University of California at Berkeley and the Mexican National Institute of Public Health (INSP) in Cuernavaca, Mexico. The candidate, Lia C. Fernald, is currently a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Institute for Business and Economic Research at UC Berkeley, and previously received a Ph.D. in Clinical Medicine and an M.B.A. with a focus on Health Care Management. The IRSDA will allow the candidate to have a period of mentored research that will prepare her to pursue a successful independent research career in international public health. The candidate' s long-term goal is to use high quality evaluation and research as a tool to develop effective and sustainable programs that promote positive social change in developing countries. She aims to develop a base of skills and knowledge that are critical to conducting research and interventions in large scale, community-based, poverty- alleviation programs. Her goals are I) to gain expertise in the theory and methodology of economics and demography; 2) to gain expertise in advanced quantitative methods for analyzing multi-level, complex, longitudinal public health and economic data; 3) to develop an understanding of health psychology and human development in relation to socioeconomic status (SES); and 4) to apply this knowledge of demographic and econometric models, and human development to the development of socio-economic metrics and analysis of health outcomes. She plans to achieve these goals through a combination of direct coursework, one-on-one tutorials, and a mentored research project. Based primarily on animal work, some researchers suspect that activity of stress-sensitive physiological systems may mediate associations between SES and both health and behavioral outcomes. Although investigators are beginning to examine concurrent relations between physiological stress responsivity and SES, no studies with humans have been able to directly address the issue of causality directly. Dr. Fernald will ask the critical question whether an improvement in socio-economic status can effect change in basal and regulatory aspects of stress physiology. She will take advantage of a large, randomized, controlled-trial of poverty reduction in Mexico (the PROGRESA program) to investigate the impact of a poverty-alleviation program on activity of physiological stress in children. She will also use the experimental model to begin to identify factors mediating the impact of PROGRESA on stress reactivity.