Doctoral Dissertation Research: Biological normalcy, social stigma, and allostatic load in US adolescents

博士论文研究：美国青少年的生物正常、社会耻辱和稳态负荷

• 批准号: 1847971
• 负责人: Andrea Wiley
• 金额: $ 1.23万
• 依托单位: Indiana University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-04-01 至 2020-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1847971&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Biological; normalcy

This doctoral dissertation project will use comparative and biocultural approaches to better understand how body phenotypes are understood in the US cultural context, and how these cultural understandings may contribute to biological disparities among adolescents. The investigators will measure allostatic load (a measure of low-level chronic stress) in two groups of adolescents to assess biological impacts of psychosocial stress from perceived weight stigma in various epidemiological contexts. The work will address complex relationships among phenotypic norms, social stigma, and co-morbidities of obesity in a vulnerable section of the US population, at a time when there is a high prevalence of obesity, perceived weight stigma, and weight discrimination. Research findings will be shared with study participants as well as curriculum specialists to develop new learning modules. The project supports graduate training for a female, first-generation college student. This research employs a mixed-methods, sequential explanatory strategy, using questionnaires, biomarkers, and ethnographic interviews to compare two populations varying in prevalence of obesity: Lawrence County, Indiana (38%) and Monroe County, Indiana (22%). The project is framed around the concept of biological normalcy, which refers to the ways in which human societies develop understandings of what a "normal" human body is - normal referring to normative ideas about what bodies "should" be as well as statistical distributions of different phenotypic traits. The researchers use this concept to address: 1) how cultural beliefs about what constitutes a "normal" or healthy body are related to statistical biological norms (i.e. obesity prevalence) within a population, and 2) how these normative beliefs influence the statistical distribution of biological traits (i.e. allostatic load) in a population. It is hypothesized that variation in obesity prevalence observed between the two field sites in Indiana will be associated with differences in perceived weight stigma, with those reporting higher perceived stigma also having higher allostatic load, and that this relationship will be moderated by several social and behavioral factors and coping strategies.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.

该博士论文项目将使用比较和生物文化方法来更好地了解美国文化背景下如何理解身体表型，以及这些文化理解如何导致青少年之间的生物差异。研究人员将测量两组青少年的稳态负荷（一种衡量低水平慢性压力的方法），以评估各种流行病学背景下因体重耻辱而产生的社会心理压力的生物影响。这项工作将解决美国人口中弱势群体的表型规范、社会耻辱和肥胖合并症之间的复杂关系，而此时肥胖、体重耻辱和体重歧视盛行。研究结果将与研究参与者和课程专家分享，以开发新的学习模块。该项目支持第一代女性大学生的研究生培训。这项研究采用混合方法、顺序解释策略，使用问卷、生物标志物和人种学访谈来比较肥胖患病率不同的两个人群：印第安纳州劳伦斯县 (38%) 和印第安纳州门罗县 (22%)。该项目围绕生物常态的概念构建，它指的是人类社会发展对“正常”人体是什么的理解的方式——正常指的是关于身体“应该”是什么以及身体的统计分布的规范观念。不同的表型特征。研究人员使用这个概念来解决：1）关于构成“正常”或健康身体的文化信念如何与人群中的统计生物学规范（即肥胖患病率）相关，以及2）这些规范信念如何影响健康的统计分布群体的生物学特征（即稳态负荷）。据推测，印第安纳州两个现场观察到的肥胖患病率的变化将与感知体重耻辱的差异相关，那些报告感知耻辱感较高的人也具有较高的变稳态负荷，并且这种关系将受到一些社会和行为的调节。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优点和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。