Doctoral Dissertation: Maternal Stress and Early Childhood Wellbeing: Exploring Risk and Protective Factors

母亲在孩子发育的早期、关键时期所经历的压力可能会对孩子的生理产生负面影响。然而，调解这些负面影响的因素并未得到充分了解。这一博士论文项目将使用具有良好特征的母子样本来调查外部应激源、母亲对压力的反应、影响压力感知的社会文化因素以及儿童早期高体重指数之间的关系。这个项目将促进我们对人类生物适应、文化和环境之间复杂相互作用的了解，并可能为有关早期肥胖的公共卫生战略提供信息。该项目还将支持研究生培训和国际研究合作。这项研究的主要目标是分析可能中介或缓和儿童早期肥胖症发展的风险和保护因素，并探索新西兰母亲的生活压力体验。这项研究采用了生物文化混合方法。首先，研究人员将使用新西兰的一个大型(n=5839)代表性数据集，使用结构方程模型来检查压力、潜在风险和保护因素以及儿童早期体重指数之间的路径。然后，研究人员将采用定性的方法，对新西兰母亲的种族多样性样本(n=70)进行调查，以探索这一人群的压力生活经历。这个项目的发现将有助于我们加深对压力在所有人类群体中的生物学后果的理解。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Stress experienced by a mother during early, critical periods of her child's development can have negative impacts on the child's physiology. However, the factors that mediate these negative impacts are not fully understood. This doctoral dissertation project will use well-characterized samples of mothers and offspring to investigate relationships among external stressors, maternal responses to stress, sociocultural factors that impact the perception of stress, and offspring high body mass index in early childhood. This project will advance our knowledge about the complex interplay among human biological adaptation, culture, and environment, and will potentially inform public health strategies regarding early life obesity. The project will also support graduate student training and international research collaborations.The primary objective of this study is to analyze the risks and protective factors that may mediate or moderate the development of early childhood obesity and to explore the lived experience of stress in a sample of New Zealand mothers. The research uses a biocultural mixed-methods approach. First, the researchers will use structural equation modeling to examine pathways among stress, potential risk and protective factors, and early childhood body mass index using a large (n=5,839) representative data set from New Zealand. The researchers will then employ qualitative methods with an ethnically-diverse sample of New Zealand mothers (n=70) to explore the lived experience of stress in this population. The findings from this project will contribute to our growing understanding of the biological consequences of stress in all human populations.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.