Doctoral Dissertation Research: Culture, Change & Chronic Stress in Lowland Bolivia

佛罗里达大学博士候选人艾伦·舒尔茨将在克拉伦斯·格雷夫利博士的指导下进行关于压力与社会文化变化之间关系的研究。 这项研究将在一群觅食农民中进行，他们是低地玻利维亚的Tsimane人，他们处于接触市场和非传统文化的早期阶段。研究人员将试图解决为什么Tsimane的短期压力生物标志物和相关不良健康结果的已知比率最低的难题，尽管二十年来市场暴露不断增加，这通常与压力增加和健康状况恶化有关。该研究将采用各种社会科学方法来探讨这些主题，包括长期参与者观察，重点关注当地经验以及对市场暴露和社会分层的解释。重点关注的是心理社会压力途径和文化的压力源和抵抗资源之间的平衡的变化的作用。结构化人种志将被用来隔离社会地位，社会关系和物质生活方式的文化模式。该项目在流行病学调查中达到高潮，该调查测试了个人的信念和行为，并将其与压力过程和结果（如血压和回顾性压力生物标志物头发皮质醇）联系起来。该项目还包括对当地本体论对市场一体化影响的创新调查，以及对当地研究经济的影响的审查，这是由于作为世界上最后一个相对孤立的人口之一，Tsimane'已经接待了研究人员几十年。这项研究是创新的，因为它将文化和意义与个人的生物和健康结果联系起来，迄今为止，这一群体仍然能够抵抗慢性压力和相关的健康状况不佳。更一般地说，文化和意义在限制市场暴露期间的慢性压力方面所发挥的作用的隔离将建议对其他人群中的慢性压力进行调查的替代领域。支持研究也支持研究生的教育。

University of Florida doctoral candidate, Alan Schultz, supervised by Dr. Clarence Gravlee, will undertake research on the relationship between stress and socio-cultural change. The research will be carried out among a group of foraging-farmers, the Tsimane' of lowland Bolivia, who are at an early stage of exposure to markets and non-traditional cultures. The researcher will try to solve the puzzle of why Tsimane' have some of the lowest known rates of short-term stress biomarkers and related adverse health outcomes despite two decades of increasing market exposure, which is usually associated with increased stress and worsening health. The study will take up these topics using a variety of social science methods, including long-term participant observation focused on local experiences and interpretations of market exposure and social stratification. Key points of focus are the psychosocial stress pathway and culture's role in shifts of the balance between stressors and resistive resources. Structured ethnography will be used to isolate cultural models of social status, social relations and material lifestyle. The project culminates in an epidemiologic survey that tests individual beliefs and behavior against shared ideals linking these to the stress process and outcomes such as blood pressure and a retrospective stress biomarker, hair cortisol. The project also includes an innovative investigation of the impact of local ontology on the effects of market integration and an examination of the impacts of the local research economy that has resulted from the fact that as one of the world's last relatively isolated populations, the Tsimane' have hosted researchers for decades.The research is innovative because it links culture and meaning to individual biological and health outcomes in a population that has so far remained resistant to chronic stress and related poor health. More generally, isolation of the roles that culture and meaning have played in limiting chronic stress during market exposure will suggest alternative areas of inquiry on chronic stress in other populations. Supporting the research also supports the education of a graduate student.