Exploring the links between biodiverse foods, nutritional quality, and food security

社会、行为和经济科学司提供博士后研究奖学金，为最近的博士毕业生提供获得额外培训的机会，在知名科学家的赞助下获得研究经验，并扩大他们在本科和研究生训练之外的科学视野。博士后奖学金的进一步设计是为了帮助新科学家指导他们跨越传统学科线的研究工作，并利用他们自己独特的研究资源、地点和设施，包括在国外的研究地点。这个博士后奖学金奖支持在人类学、环境和人类健康交叉领域崭露头角的跨学科学者。在热带地区，对野生食物系统的依赖和不可持续的狩猎长期威胁着粮食安全和生计，并增加了疾病从野生动物传播给人类的风险。尽管存在对人类健康和粮食安全的风险，野生动物狩猎问题仍然是一个保护目标，但很少在公共卫生和发展战略中得到考虑。这项研究的目的是了解营养和文化在推动西非丛林肉消费中的作用（在热带森林中捕猎的非驯化哺乳动物、爬行动物、两栖动物和鸟类的肉）。这名环境科学领域的女性博士后研究员将接受营养生态学和文化人类学的培训。通过结合实地和实验室研究，该研究员将被介绍到独特的研究资源、地点和设施，这将促进美国和尼日利亚机构之间的国际合作。这些活动将为学生和尼日利亚科学家提供独特的指导和培训机会。这项研究将通过解读丛林肉膳食质量的作用，进一步推动科学进步，并将这一问题纳入发展和公共卫生政策的范围。研究结果将对本研究系统之外的国家健康、繁荣和福利产生影响。例如，了解丛林肉消费的驱动因素有助于制定政策，发展补充食物来源和防止野生动物传染病的出现。该领域的研究活动将对人类健康、濒危物种和脆弱栖息地产生直接和间接的好处。这项研究综合了营养和生态学的方法，以及社会科学的定量和定性驱动方法，以衡量丛林肉在决定尼日利亚狩猎社区的饮食选择和维持粮食安全方面的独特作用。该项目将通过以下方式生成原始数据：1)野生和家养动物食物资源的营养对比分析；2)家庭膳食多样性与粮食不安全半结构化调查的定量分析；3)定性分析焦点小组讨论、关键信息者访谈、参与者观察和讲故事来评估狩猎和消费的文化背景。营养成分将与多种文化背景下的饮食选择和粮食安全相关，为人类文化与营养科学之间的相互作用提供新的见解。野生肉类消费是一个紧迫的环境和健康问题，研究结果将为综合建议提供基础，为粮食安全、公共卫生和保护政策提供信息。该项目涉及多个层面的国际合作，由美国国家科学基金会国际科学与工程办公室共同资助。

The Directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences offers postdoctoral research fellowships to provide opportunities for recent doctoral graduates to obtain additional training, to gain research experience under the sponsorship of established scientists, and to broaden their scientific horizons beyond their undergraduate and graduate training. Postdoctoral fellowships are further designed to assist new scientists to direct their research efforts across traditional disciplinary lines and to avail themselves of unique research resources, sites, and facilities, including at foreign locations. This postdoctoral fellowship award supports a rising interdisciplinary scholar at the intersection of the anthropological sciences, environment and human health. In the tropics, reliance on wild food systems and unsustainable hunting threatens food security and livelihoods long-term, and increases risk of disease transmission from wildlife to humans. Despite the risks to human health and food security, the issue of wild game hunting remains a target of conservation, but is rarely considered in public health and development strategies. The aim of this research is to understand the role of nutrition and culture in driving consumption of bushmeat (meat from non-domesticated mammals, reptiles, amphibians and birds hunted for food in tropical forests) in West Africa. The postdoctoral research fellow, a woman in environmental science, will be trained in nutritional ecology and cultural anthropology. Through combined field and laboratory research, the fellow will be introduced to unique research resources, sites, and facilities that will foster international collaborations between institutions in the United States and Nigeria. These activities will provide unique mentoring and training opportunities for students and Nigerian scientists. This research will further the progress of science by deciphering the role of dietary quality of bushmeat, and bringing the issue into the scope of development and public health policy. Results will have implications for national health, prosperity, and welfare beyond this study system. For example, understanding the drivers of bushmeat consumption assists policy in developing complementary food sources and preventing emergence of infectious diseases from wildlife. Research activities in the field will have both direct and indirect benefits to human health, endangered species, and vulnerable habitats. This research integrates methods from nutrition and ecology, with both quantitatively and qualitatively driven methods from the social sciences, to measure the unique role of bushmeat in determining dietary choices and maintaining food security in Nigerian hunting communities. The project will generate original data through: 1) comparative nutritional assays of wild and domestic animal food resources; 2) quantitative analyses of semi-structured surveys of household dietary diversity and food insecurity; and 3) qualitative analyses of focus group discussions, key informant interviews, participant observation, and storytelling to assess the cultural contexts of hunting and consumption. Nutritional composition will be related to dietary choices and food security across multiple cultural contexts to provide new insights into interactions between human culture and nutritional science. Wild meat consumption is a pressing environmental and health concern, and findings will provide the basis for integrative recommendations that will inform food security, public health, and conservation policies. The project involves international collaboration at multiple levels, and is co-funded by the NSF Office of International Science and Engineering.