Doctoral Dissertation Research: A bioarchaeological examination of early institutional services and juvenile care and health

青少年是一个特别脆弱的群体，他们的健康受到他们所接受的护理的强烈影响。这种护理是一个主要的健康决定因素，因为早期的生活压力可能会影响终生甚至代际健康结果。历史上出现了许多提供这种护理的机构，包括提供社会和医疗服务的修道院等宗教机构。这项博士论文研究项目通过比较寺院和非寺院地点青少年的骨骼压力证据，调查了这种服务对青少年健康的影响。这项研究提供了历史背景，以了解这些机构是如何以及为什么存活下来的，以及它们今天是如何运作的，包括机会和有效性如何随着年龄、地位或地点等因素的变化而变化。这项研究有三个主要目标：(I)提出一个充分考虑社会文化背景的青少年护理扩展生物考古模型，该模型适用于一系列生物和社会年龄段的青少年；(Ii)随后通过将其应用于复杂的护理网络来证明该模型的有效性；以及(Iii)确定早期社会和卫生服务如何在护理网络中发挥作用以影响青少年健康。护理模式的生物考古采用循序渐进的方法，包括诊断和分析病理和压力指标、个人/群体的生物和社会护理需求以及这种护理的性质，以及护理者和接受者的代理。在这个框架内，研究人员比较了三种骨骼收藏(城市寺院、农村寺院和非寺院)之间的骨骼应力指标、死亡率数据和文化数据。该项目的结果可以证明扩展的儿童保育生物考古学框架的适用性，并通过更彻底地描述其早期历史和随时间推移对青少年的影响来帮助理解社会和卫生服务。该奖项反映了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。

Juveniles are an especially vulnerable group whose health is strongly influenced by the care they receive. Such care is a major health determinant, as early life stress can influence lifetime and even intergenerational health outcomes. Numerous institutions arose historically to provide this care, including religious institutions like monasteries that offered social and health services. This doctoral dissertation research project investigates the impact that such services had on juvenile health by comparing skeletal evidence of stress in juveniles from monastic and non-monastic sites. The research provides historical context for understanding how and why these institutions survived and how they operate today, including how access and effectiveness vary with factors such as age, status, or location. The project contributes to undergraduate and graduate training in transferable laboratory skills, as well as to open data projects and science outreach efforts.This study has three primary objectives: (i) to propose an expanded bioarchaeological model of juvenile care which fully considers sociocultural context and is applicable to juveniles of a range of biological and social age categories, (ii) to subsequently demonstrate the model’s efficacy by applying it to a complex care network, and (iii) to determine how early social and health services functioned in the network of care to impact juvenile health. Bioarchaeology of care models use a step-by-step approach which includes the diagnosis and analysis of pathological and stress indicators, biological and social care needs of the individual/group and the nature of that care, and the agency of both the caregivers and receivers. Within this framework, the researchers compare skeletal stress indicators, mortality data, and cultural data between three skeletal collections (urban monastic, rural monastic, and non-monastic). Results from this project can demonstrate the applicability of an expanded bioarchaeology of childcare framework as well as contribute to the understanding of social and health services by more thoroughly characterizing their early history and impact on juveniles across time.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.