ECOCULTURAL CONTEXTS OF CHILD HEALTH & DEVELOPMENT

Stress and childhood are conceived of and experienced differently across cultures, ecologies, and individuals. We cannot untangle effects of stress on child health and development without understanding the context in which it occurs, as well as what constitutes a stressor, the pacing of childhood (i.e., cultural age categories, sensitive periods in development, and biological transitions), and the ways these intersect in a particular socioecological environment.

My work in Ethiopia centers on stressors from the physical and social environments and the ways these impact nutritional status, biomarker patterning, and sociocultural development among Sidama agropastoralist children. This requires a holistic approach and a wide variety of data, including: ethnographic data on cultural age categories; cultural and physical stressors, from both adults’ and children’s perspectives; anthropometrics; investigations of health models and beliefs around disease transmission and treatment; and collection of hair samples to assess biomarkers associated with health and child development (cortisol and DHEAS). I currently collect these data among Sidama agropastoralists of Ethiopia, and formerly worked with Aka forest foragers and Ngandu horticulturalists in the Central African Republic (see Fieldsites for more information). 

In Alabama, my collaborative research with Dr. Jess Wallace centers on brain health and the impacts of participation in athletics on holistic measures of child health and well-being among adolescents attending Title 1 high schools around the state. A major component of our programming centers on nutrition – check out our Instagram (@MATCHEDatUA) to see some of what we have done most recently. We also collaborated with ALRI to create and host the yearly event Brain Day at UA. This work is rooted in the tenets of positive youth development and community-engaged research, and aims to identify environmental assets that can be amplified in order to mitigate health inequities among Alabama’s youth. 

I am also a CONSERVE Research Group faculty affiliate. In collaboration with this Alabama Water Institute research group, Dr. Steven Weinman and I are initiating a line of research that will investigate the effects of water pollution on child health and development in Alabama. From a biological standpoint, I am specifically interested in the role of “forever” chemicals and other toxins in the rising rates of childhood obesity and earlier onset of puberty. Socioculturally and cognitively, I will investigate how a truncated middle childhood, and a subsequently extended adolescence, impacts life history strategies.

Potential projects for interested undergraduate and graduate students are wide-ranging and may include those focused on holistic understandings of health and wellbeing, effects of stress, behavioral endocrinology, nutritional status, sensitive periods in development, cross-cultural or evolutionary investigations of childhood (including parent and peer dynamics), climate change/urbanization, and effects of participation in athletics/out-of-school activities on life history outcomes, among others. If you’re interested in working with me on these (or related) projects, please contact me.