Doctoral Dissertation Research: Histories of Stress: A Life Course Approach

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). A life course framework views biological well-being as more than just a consequence of an individual’s immediate environment. This doctoral dissertation project analyzes how urban growth and climate change affected human biology in the past by examining both the timing and pattern of physiological stress responses that manifest across a lifespan.

The project represents a large scale bioarchaeological integration of radiogrammetry methods with markers of skeletal stress. The examination of biological impacts of urban growth and climate change in the past provide a baseline for human experiences with stress reaction and disease processes prior to modern medical intervention and vaccination protocols.

The results have the potential to inform modern public health research and policy in an increasingly urban world facing new climatic challenges. The project supports undergraduate and graduate training and a number of K-12 and public science outreach efforts.

This project collects bioarchaeological data from two archaeological sites to test two conceptual life course models related to human biological well-being. The critical period model draws a link between early life exposures and later adult health while accumulation of risk considers how continuous and later stress exposures compound into differential patterns of health.

Non-specific markers of skeletal stress that occur during different development and growth periods, as well as independent markers of infection, and radiographs are collected for individuals representing multiple time periods in the historic past. Statistical models are used to explore the co-variance of stress markers and how patterns of stress exposure at different times result in differential morbidity and mortality profiles.

A life course perspective combined with paleodemographic analyses offers new perspectives on changing health dynamics in light of the demographic, climatic, and social changes occurring over 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.