Doctoral Dissertation Improvement: Market Integration, Stress, and Child Health among the Tsimane' of the Bolivian Amazon

鉴于全球化的快速步伐和不断扩大的影响范围，压力可能是经济和文化转型影响健康和反映生活质量变化的重要生物学途径。在研究压力对健康的影响时，把重点放在儿童身上尤为重要，因为许多与压力有关的疾病/失调都起源于生长和发育期间。面对全球化，压力反应的个体差异可能反过来影响儿童适应迅速变化的生态和社会文化环境的能力。这项研究将通过测试融入区域市场经济以及相关的文化和生活方式变化是否与玻利维亚亚马逊地区提斯曼孩子的压力增加有关，为这个难题提供一个关键的部分。本研究的具体目的是：记录提斯曼儿童压力反应的变化；探讨市场整合、文化变迁和家庭环境对压力反应差异模式的影响；研究应激水平作为感染和生长的下游健康结果的预测因子。通过使用压力反应的客观生物标志物和创新的认知人类学方法来定义文化上显著的压力来源，本研究将阐明文化变化的社会文化背景如何“深入人心”，影响提斯曼儿童的压力和健康。提斯曼人是研究市场整合、压力和健康之间关系的理想人群，因为各个村庄在接近程度、接触程度和参与市场活动、生存实践、家庭经济资源以及与文化变化相关的生活方式变化等方面存在一系列差异。除了严格的生态比较之外，本研究还采用了压力和文化变化的多种测量方法，将阐明向市场经济过渡的细微差别，这些细微差别对儿童压力有最重要的影响，并有助于我们理解全球化对健康的影响。这项研究将提供一个研究压力和健康的框架，将文化、个人和生物学联系起来，并将提供一个“路线图”，以理解直接压力源的影响，以及压力反应的不同模式中的儿童水平因素，允许对儿童日常生活中的社会挑战有一个特权的一瞥。此外，这种发展观点将阐明儿童的心理和生理能力如何适应不断变化的生态、文化和政治经济环境的压力。这项研究将有助于科学的基础设施，通过提供实践培训和完成共同pi的论文研究。除了提供与来自南美、欧洲和美国的国际学者合作的机会外，这项工作还将通过与当地土著学者的合作，促进玻利维亚当地的科学基础设施。这项研究将是首批探索潜在的发育压力机制的研究之一，通过这种机制，快速的文化变化可能会侵蚀健康和生物功能，并为与儿童健康相关的全球政策提供信息。

Given the rapid pace and expanding reach of globalization, stress may represent an important biological pathway by which economic and cultural transition affects health and reflects changes in quality of life. A focus on children is particularly important in studying the health consequences of stress because many stress-related diseases/disorders have their origins during growth and development. Individual differences in the stress response may, in turn, influence how well children adapt to a rapidly-changing ecological and sociocultural environment in the face of globalization. This study will provide a critical piece of this puzzle, by testing whether increased integration into the regional market economy and associated cultural and lifestyle changes are associated with increased stress among Tsimane' children of the Bolivian Amazon. The specific objectives of this study are: to document variation in the stress response of Tsimane' children; to explore the effect of market integration, culture change, and family environment on differential patterns in the stress response and; to investigate stress levels as a predictor of downstream health outcomes of infection and growth.By using objective biomarkers of the stress response and innovative cognitive anthropological methods to define culturally-salient sources of stress, this study will elucidate how the shifting social-cultural contexts of culture change "get under the skin" to affect stress and health in Tsimane' children. The Tsimane' are an ideal population in which to study the associations between market integration, stress, and health because there is a range of variation across villages in regard to proximity, exposure to, and involvement in market activities, subsistence practices, household economic resources, and changes in lifestyle associated with culture change.By employing multiple measures of stress and culture change beyond strictly ecological comparisons, this research will illuminate the nuances of the transition to the market economy that have the most significant implications for child stress and contribute to our understanding of the health consequences of globalization. This study will present a framework for studying stress and health that links culture, the individual, and biology and will provide a 'roadmap' to understanding the impact of immediate stressors as well as child-level factors in differential patterns of the stress response, permitting a privileged glimpse into the social challenges in the everyday lives of children. In addition, this developmental perspective will shed light on how children's' mental and physiologic faculties adapt to the stresses of a changing ecological, cultural, and political-economic milieu.This research will contribute to the infrastructure of science by providing hands-on training and completion of the co-PI's dissertation research. In addition to providing the opportunity for collaboration with an international community of scholars from South America, Europe, and the United States, this work will also promote the local scientific infrastructure of Bolivia through collaboration with local indigenous scholars. This research will be among the first to explore potential developmental stress mechanisms through which rapid culture change may erode health and biological function, and is well-positioned to inform global policy related to child health.