AMERICAN JOURNAL OF HUMAN BIOLOGY 27:1–5 (2015)
Review
Translating Human Biology (Introduction to Special Issue) ALEXANDRA A. BREWIS1* AND JAMES J. MCKENNA2 School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 2 Department of Anthropology, University of Notre Dame, Indiana
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Objectives: Introducing a special issue on “Translating Human Biology,” we pose two basic questions: Is human biology addressing the most critical challenges facing our species? How can the processes of translating our science be improved and innovated? Methods: We analyze articles published in American Journal of Human Biology from 2004–2013, and find there is very little human biological consideration of issues related to most of the core human challenges such as water, energy, environmental degradation, or conflict. There is some focus on disease, and considerable focus on food/nutrition. We then introduce this special volume with reference to the following articles that provide exemplars for the process of how translation and concern for broader context and impacts can be integrated into research. Conclusions: Human biology has significant unmet potential to engage more fully in translation for the public good, through consideration of the topics we focus on, the processes of doing our science, and the way we present our domain C 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. V expertise. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 27:1–5, 2015. This special issue on translating human biology, and the 2013 Human Biology Association plenary session that preceded it, asks questions we might pose to ourselves as individual scientists, but do not reflect on often as a field. How well are we contributing to the greater public good? Are we focused on the most important or relevant questions and concerns? Are we working in the best way to make a real difference? What are the fundamental challenges, and how can we best address them? Basically, how well are we doing in translating our human biology research for the public good? This issue brings together the perspectives of those who have worked hard to use human biology to “make a difference that makes a difference” in a striking diversity of ways. These include shaping public dialog and challenging assumptions through popular media, directly influencing legislators or change-maker institutions, forging public–private partnerships to advance technological innovation, and leveraging cynicism about the scientific process. The goal of this issue is to engage a critical and timely conversation in our discipline about what we should be doing, where the critical tensions, barriers, and costs lie, and to identify the better pathways forward. So, first, how well is human biology doing as a field in addressing the most critical challenge domains facing humanity? One way to assess this question is to look at the types of broader-scale human problems that human biologists are articulating with in their published research. In 2003, the late Nobel Laureate Richard Smalley laid out what he called “Humanity’s Top 10 Problems for the Next 50 Years.” His list, in order: (sustainable) energy, water, food, environment, poverty, terrorism and war, disease, education, democracy, and population. The next year, the United Nations devised their own list of the greatest 10 threats (in order): poverty, infectious disease, environmental degradation, inter-state war, civil war, genocide, other atrocities (which they list as sexual slavery, kidnapping for body parts), weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, and organized crime. If we boil these lists down, it gives us give us 13 key problems that we can use as our crude litmus test of human biology’s domain focus on major current global C 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. V
challenges over the last decade (sustainable energy, water, food, environment/environmental degradation, poverty, terrorism and war, disease, education, democracy, population growth, genocide, other atrocities, and transnational organized crime). To provide a basic assessment of the domain intersection of human biology with these grand challenges, we conducted a systematic search of research as presented in the American Journal of Human Biology in the decade since these challenges were articulated, given the AJHB’s status as the flagship journal for the Human Biology Association. Procedurally, we searched AJHB abstracts for 2004–2013 using these 13 terms and their synonyms, and then removed any cases from the search results that proved unrelated based on further reading of the abstract. The results show human biologists have had a surprisingly narrow band-width in relation to addressing these human challenges. According to this analysis, based on an absence of any published research in the AJHB, human biologists have not articulated in any obvious way with issues related to the problems of energy (at least in the sense meant by Smalley), democracy, genocide, organized crime, or (curiously) population growth. Human biologists have (also curiously) had almost nothing to say about water in the pages of the AJHB, bar Schell et al.’s (2012) consideration of the effects of eating food from toxic waterways in upstate New York. The only locatable published study that discussed atrocities (“crimes against humanity”) in the context of contemporary issues was one recent and isolated study by Jasienska (2009) examining how intergenerational ripples from slavery might explain current birth weights. Only two mentions are made of war or conflict explicitly (Bogin et al., 2007; Clarkin, 2008).
*Correspondence to: Alexandra Brewis; School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ. E-mail: [email protected] Received 18 September 2014; Revision received 30 September 2014; Accepted 5 October 2014 DOI: 10.1002/ajhb.22646 Published online 23 October 2014 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).
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Even on the point of environmental degradation and related environmental issues, there is surprisingly little. As Steegman (2007) notes, our human biological discussions of the physical environment have declined noticeably in recent years. Indeed, while 101 abstracts in the last decade reference the environment, more than half use it as a synonym for location, while most of the rest use it in a general sense to refer to any non-human conditions that affect health factors or growth. Only four articles can be found that explicitly discuss the impact of environmental issues (climate or pollution) on contemporary human biology (Bjerregaard et al., 2012; Meehan, 2012; Steegmann, 2005, 2007), while another handful relate adverse (usually high altitude) climates to human development (e.g., Adhikari et al., 2011; Dufour and Piperata, 2004; Cameron, 2007). Although the term “education” appears regularly in human biology abstracts, there are no cases in which it is in fact theorized in relation to human biological variation (rather it is usually a covariate in analyses). There is one notable exception of this in human biology, but published outside of the AJHB—Crooks (1995, 1997) careful work in Kentucky and Belize demonstrating how poverty and biology intersect to undermine school performance. The emergence of a biology of poverty (Leatherman and Goodman, 1998)—of which Crooks’s work is an especially cogent example—challenges human biologists to consider questions of the costs, causes, and consequences of poverty as both a global and local phenomena. There are 18 citations in the last decade that mention poverty or deprivation explicitly in abstracts, but if you include consideration of socioeconomic status the total rises to 80. Examples of emergent clusters of biology of poverty research found in the AJHB includes studies examining how children’s health and growth becomes comprised by such factors as household poverty and homelessness (e.g., Brewis and Lee, 2010; Greksa et al., 2007; Moffat et al., 2005; Nogueira et al., 2013; Smith and Richards, 2008), and most recently a set of studies considering of the role of low socioeconomic status and income differentials in adult obesity and related conditions using a wide array of approaches (e.g., Gartin, 2012; Hruschka, 2012; Steckel, 2013; Wells et al., 2010). The contribution of human biologists to issues around the domain of food (including “nutrition”) is, by contrast, readily apparent within the pages of the AJHB (106 citations), including a recent special issue (Wiley et al., 2012). Examples of how human biologists are using research in the domain of food to address contemporary problems includes Wiley’s unraveling of the health benefits—or lack thereof—of milk consumption (2005, 2010, 2012), Hadley et al.’s work connecting mental illness and food insecurity (Hadley and Patil, 2006; Hadley et al., 2012; Patil and Hadley, 2008), and an array of studies examining the (predominantly negative) effects of economic and other major transitions on nutritional quality (e.g., Blackwell et al., 2009, Houck et al., 2013) (e.g., Blackwell et al., 2009; Dufour and Piperata, 2008; Houck et al., 2013; Piperata et al., 2011). Disease (including “health”) is the domain of greatest activity over the last decade (278 citations). Some good examples of human biology’s attention to contemporary disease issues include: considerations of the fetal and developmental origins of chronic disease (Gluckman et al., 2007; Pike, 2005; Kuzawa, 2007) that ultimately American Journal of Human Biology
point to the broader importance of investing specifically in better in maternal and prenatal health; the work of McGarvey et al. in Samoa unraveling the chronic disease effects of modernization in developing country settings (e.g., Bitton et al., 2006; Hawley et al., 2012); and the lessons Schell et al. have provided on how toxic exposures are amplified in urban environments (Schell et al., 2012). Most recently we have seen a florescence of work focused directly and indirectly on factors that shape vulnerability to obesity, including a special issue (Brewis, 2012). In the pages of the AJHB we have a growing concern in the last few years with the health impacts of various forms of social exclusion related to prejudice, discrimination and stigma in an economically and socially divided and differentiated world (Brewis and Wutich, 2012; Gravlee and Dressler, 2005; McClure et al., 2010). So, this analysis demonstrates an interesting lack of intersection between human biology and some keys issues human biologists could be helping to better theorize and understand (such as water, war or conflict, and climate change), and those areas in which they are already exerting active influence (food and nutrition). But, a focus on the process of translation itself is another area of research, perhaps more germane to how we individually focus our programs of research that articulates a different set of issues: what should human biologists be focused on—what are we best able to address, and what is the best way to address it? Thus, to our second key point here: Are we going about the process of translation in the best ways? How we think about, and then go about doing, translation—is another, and arguably the far more important, way to consider both the challenges and successes of engaging human biology for the public good. It is this concern for process that defines the selection of papers we have offered here in the special issue. This concern tackles head-on the observation that, while often embedded implicitly in much of the research we do, a deep concern for improving translation is rarely the direct focus of our scholarly discussions (cf. Albalak, 2009). What does appear is mostly published outside of our disciplinary home-range, such as in applied journals. Stepping into this mute space within human biology, the authors here bring together a range of important examples and observations on the broader questions we asked them to reflect on: what are meaningful, satisfying, and effective ways to actually use our research and domain expertise in human biology to make a difference? Are we emphasizing the right things? Is our disciplinary framework, our training, or our academic reward system sufficient to the broader task? Basically, what can we do to enhance and ultimately maximize the impact of our efforts for the public good, and our own sense of satisfaction in doing so? Ultimately, the answers to all these questions are found stitched through careers in the unfolding research programs, shifting commitments, and evolving passions of each human biologist, including those represented in this volume. In this vein, our special issue begins with one of our disciplinary exemplars, a team that shows exactly what partnership research is all about and how—as it has grown over time—it has come to reflect the belief and commitment that what we do with living people must ultimately be focused substantively on what we do for them. University of Albany’s Schell et al. have been working to successfully address a complex of issues demonstrating
HUMAN BIOLOGY
how toxic environments have shaped biology in both tribal and impoverished inner-city settings of upstate New York for many years. “Backyard” community-based projects can in fact be some of the most challenging we do, in part because ongoing visibility is intrinsic to the enterprise and the political and emotional stakes can be very high as those most affected participate in almost every level of the research. Whenever possible, culturally appropriate methods and procedures invite if not require community participation and consensus building which is critical throughout the research. As beautifully described elsewhere, Schell’s (1997) “risk-focused model,” around which some of his present work finds relevance, emerged from a study of multigenerational, deleterious consequences of lead exposure on children’s cognitive performance. Lead exposure generally had the effect of limiting adolescent and young adult students’ abilities to excel mentally and psychologically (or at least to perform satisfactorily) in school. The intersection of these injurious health effects on behavior and cognitive skills were found to be cumulative and altogether reduced opportunities for future employment, therein increasing the chances that lifetime environmental assaults would compound. That is, the lower salaries imposed by deficient educations prevented already injured people from moving away from toxic neighborhoods, facilitating even greater lead exposure in succeeding, related generations that continue to be exposed to the same toxins as their parents were (Schell, 1992). The models Schell et al. employs acknowledge that risk in stratified societies is granted by people’s observed social and biological characteristics. As they found among Akwesasne community members, risk can be identified as “focused” because several different types of risk commonly occur simultaneously in individuals with shared characteristics contributing to this compounding effect. Perhaps challenging popular wisdom, their research makes clear that most of the damage to individuals is not due to their own poor choices, but rather results from the larger economic and social forces beyond their own and even community control. What is remarkable about this research is that the results (like tests of toxicant levels or physical growth assessments) wherever possible are returned to participants or their physicians even as data collection proceeds. This process produces immediate, tangible benefits. If a commitment to local communities is one way to promote translational scholarship, others have worked with the same passion to consider how our human biological knowledge might be more globally applicable at the other end of the scale. One means to translate, although not necessarily an easy one, is through policy influence. David Pelletier, trained in Paul Baker’s human adaptability framework, has been working at the policy coal face for years. In his article here, he discusses the many frustrations and small victories of using human biological expertise to influence lawmakers and global institutions (such as WHO) to do the sensible, thoughtful thing in regard to the critical goal of improving global nutrition metrics and standards. Indeed, Pelletier’s work is remarkable as much for its breadth as well as for its impact in helping to create positive change, whether getting the FDA to use his work to guide policies on genetically engineered food, getting worldwide organizations to acknowledge the role of specific political economies in formulating nutrition pol-
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icies, helping local and national agencies to measure and assess rural African crop failures, or even being able to test hypotheses about diet and cardiovascular diseases in Polynesia. If Schell and Pelletier are senior scholars in our field with decades of field and outreach experience, our next paper comes from a more recently trained colleague, pushing the boundaries of translational work for our field in new and arguably more daring ways. “No health without mental health” is a foundational principle of MD/PhD Brandon Kohrt’s contributions and, indeed, research program on biocultural aspects of mental health (anxiety, PTSD, depression) in Nepal and Mongolia. He has played a critical role in uncovering some great human tragedies through his parallel work as a filmmaker and a psychiatrist, and he is taking his scientific articulation of mental health issues in war to shape a broader and more human public dialog about human suffering in ways that feel both fresh and important. In this issue he speaks to the fact that two fifths of the world populations live in countries without mental health legislation. This figure assumes more meaning when he illuminates exactly what it means that depression is a leading cause of disability adjusted life years globally. And he stresses that biomarkers (including social genomics) and the science that produces them are critical in determining and discovering the shared social determinant pathways in physical and mental health. These same or similar pathways observed in Asia, we can presume, may play some role in the impairments to North American children’s cognition by exposure to lead toxins about which Schell speaks. Kohrt’s message here is that to move forward human biology will need to be even more engaged in policy formulation that first prove the legitimacy of mental health as a major aspect of human biology, and accordingly contribute to research designs that measure outcomes of the lifelong benefits of early mental health promotion. Our next paper, by bioculturally oriented bioarcheologists Rachel Watkins and Jennifer Muller, lays out how positionality—being explicit about one’s one point of view—changes what we think of as the “right way” to do our science. Using the Cobb collection, a set of skeletal and written materials related to African Americans living in Washington DC before 1970, they show how a gendered and racialized stance can reveal unseen biases in how we categorize and bound our biological data. Their explanation shows how the very attempt of gender or racial neutrality can in itself insert biases into how we understand and react to data. By arguing that an overt political agenda can act to expand and improve our science, they give us new suggestions about how we can strive as human biologists to make a difference through not only what we study, but how we go about studying it. Christopher Stojanowski and William Duncan lay out a different form of proposal for bioarchaeology, outlining other ways this relatively young area can embolden its engagement in public discussion and debate. They ask human biologists to reflect deeply on what types of messages the field should be sharing and advancing to best align the research, the public interest, and what the public is actually interested in. This paper advances the importance of engaging in social media, a means of science communication of which human biology to date has been extremely shy and accordingly had little—let alone American Journal of Human Biology
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thoughtful—engagement. This is an area where younger scholars are going to have to lead the more senior, and it is gratifying to see the intellectual arguments for why social media is very important to the relevancy and impact of our field so clearly articulated herein. Out last paper includes three other innovative and energetic junior colleagues all working in an explicitly biocultural framework—Deborah Williams, Sarah Trainer, and Daniel Hruschka. The increasing concern around the “problem” of obesity provides an important domain in which human biologists can be funded and engaged in public health and other intervention and prevention efforts. As this article makes clear, how we talk about and conceptualize that “problem” will have a massive impact on our capacity to participate effectively in those translation efforts. Their approach to collaborative work shows why we need to be explicit about, even embrace, a very necessary cynicism about the limits of both social and medical approaches to obesity, and use those critiques to work within and on the “problem” rather than simply meditate upon the futility of the broader enterprise. And this explanation of the work being done within this most tricky and very current area also demonstrates—full circle back to Schell et al.’s paper—a collaborative ethos in contemporary problem solving. Using insights from human biology is a very important and under-utilized viewpoint in the broader public sphere. It may well be that the contemporary status and impact of human biology in relation to attacking larger global issues facing humankind into the 21st century have some distance to go along a potential spectrum of research possibilities to which our unique skills and methods could potentially make contributions. But that said we are hopeful, no, perhaps certain that what is presented here represent exemplars of what can be done, produced not just by exceptional human biologists, but exceptional human beings. We are proud to present their work and presume you will be as inspired as much as we are—perhaps to even follow in their tracks. LITERATURE CITED Adhikari A, Sen A, Brumbaugh RC, Schwartz J. 2011. Altered growth patterns of a mountain Ok population of Papua New Guinea over 25 years of change. Am J Hum Biol 23:325–332. Albalak R. 2009. From biological anthropology to applied public health: Epidemiological approaches to the study of infectious disease. Am J Hum Biol 21:687–693. Bitton A, McGarvey ST, Viali S. 2006. Anger expression and lifestyle incongruity interactions on blood pressure in Samoan adults. Am J Hum Biol 18:369–376. Bjerregaard P, Chatwood S, Denning B, Joseph L, Young TK. 2012. Sex ratios in the arctic-do man-made chemicals matter? Am J Hum Biol 24: 165–169. Blackwell AD, Pryor G, Pozo J, Tiwia W, Sugiyama LS. 2009. Growth and market integration in Amazonia: A comparison of growth indicators between Shuar, Shiwiar, and nonindigenous school children. Am J Hum Biol 21:161–171. Bogin B, Silva MIV, Rios L. 2007. Life history trade-offs in human growth: adaptation or pathology? Am J Hum Biol 19:631–642. Brewis A, Lee S. 2010. Children’s work, earnings, and nutrition in urban Mexican shantytowns. Am J Hum Biol 22:60–68. Brewis AA, Wutich A. 2012. Explicit versus implicit fat-stigma. Am J Hum Biol 24:332–338. Brewis AA. 2012. Obesity and human biology: toward a global perspective. Am J Hum Biol 24:258–260. Cameron N. 2007. Growth patterns in adverse environments. Am J Hum Biol 19:615–621. Clarkin PF. 2008. Adiposity and height of adult Hmong refugees: relationship with war-related early malnutrition and later migration. Am J Hum Biol 20:174–184.
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Crooks DL. 1995. American children at risk: poverty and its consequences for children’s health, growth, and school achievement. Am J Phys Anthropol 38:57–86. Crooks DL. 1997. Biocultural factors in school achievement for Mopan children in Belize. Am Anthropol 99:586–601. Dufour DL, Piperata BA. 2008. Energy expenditure among farmers in developing countries: what do we know? Am J Hum Biol 20:249– 258. Dufour DL, Piperata BA. 2004. Rural-to-urban migration in Latin America: an update and thoughts on the model. Am J Hum Biol 16:395–404. Gartin M. 2012. Food deserts and nutritional risk in Paraguay. Am J Hum Biol 24:296–301. Gluckman PD, Hanson MA, Beedle AS. 2007. Early life events and their consequences for later disease: a life history and evolutionary perspective. Am J Hum Biol 19:1–19. Graves BM. 2010. Ritualized combat as an indicator of intrasexual selection effects on male life history evolution. Am J Hum Biol 22:45–49. Gravlee CC, Dressler WW. 2005. Skin pigmentation, self-perceived color, and arterial blood pressure in Puerto Rico. Am J Hum Biol 17:195–206. Greksa LP, Rie N, Islam ABMR, Maki U, Omori K. 2007. Growth and health status of street children in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Am J Hum Biol 19:51–60. Hadley C, Patil CL. 2006. Food insecurity in rural Tanzania is associated with maternal anxiety and depression. Am J Hum Biol 18:359–368. Hadley C, Tessema F, Muluneh AT. 2012. Household food insecurity and caregiver distress: equal threats to child nutritional status? Am J Hum Biol 24:149–157. Hawley NL, Wier LM, Cash HL, Viali S, Tuitele J, McGarvey ST. 2012. Modernization and cardiometabolic risk in Samoan adolescents. Am J Hum Biol 24:551–557. Houck K, Sorensen MV, Lu F, Alban D, Alvarez K, Hidobro D, Doljanin C, Ona AI. 2013. The effects of market integration on childhood growth and nutritional status: the dual burden of under- and over-nutrition in the Northern Ecuadorian Amazon. Am J Hum Biol 25:524–533. Hruschka DJ. 2012. Do economic constraints on food choice make people fat? A critical review of two hypotheses for the poverty–obesity paradox. Am J Hum Biol 24:277–285. Jasienska G. 2009. Low birth weight of contemporary African Americans: an intergenerational effect of slavery? Am J Hum Biol 2009;21:16–24. Jasienska G, Jasienski M. 2008. Interpopulation, interindividual, intercycle, and intracycle natural variation in progesterone levels: a quantitative assessment and implications for population studies. Am J Hum Biol 20:35–42. Kuzawa CW. 2007. Developmental origins of life history: growth, productivity, and reproduction. Am J Hum Biol 19:654–661. Leatherman T, Goodman A. 1998. Expanding the biocultural synthesis toward a biology of poverty. Am J Phys Anthropol 102:1–3. McClure HH, Snodgrass JJ, Martinez CR, Eddy JM, Jim enez RA, Isiordia LE. 2010. Discrimination, psychosocial stress, and health among Latin American immigrants in Oregon. Am J Hum Biol 22:421–423. Moffat T, Galloway T, Latham J. 2005. Stature and adiposity among children in contrasting neighborhoods in the city of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Am J Hum Biol 17:355–367. Meehan TD. 2012. Energetics of thermoregulation by an industrious endotherm. Am J Hum Biol 24:713–715. Nogueira H, Gama A, Mour~ ao I, Marques V, Ferr~ ao M, Padez C. 2013. The associations of SES, obesity, sport activity, and perceived neighborhood environments: is there a model of environmental injustice penalizing portuguese children? Am J Hum Biol 25:434–436. Patil C, Hadley C. 2008. Symptoms of anxiety and depression and mother’s marital status: an exploratory analysis of polygyny and psychosocial stress. Am J Hum Biol 20:475–477. Pike IL. 2005. Maternal stress and fetal responses: evolutionary perspectives on preterm delivery. Am J Hum Biol 17:55–65. Piperata BA, Ivanova SA, Da-gloria Pedro, Veiga G, Polsky A, Spence JE, Murrieta RSS. 2011. Nutrition in transition: dietary patterns of rural Amazonian women during a period of economic change. Am J Hum Biol 23:458–469. Schell, LM, Ravenscroft J, Cole M, Jacobs A, Newman J, and the Akwesasne Task Force on the Environment. 2005. Health disparities and toxicant exposure of Akwesasne Mohawk young adults: a partnership approach to research. Environ Health Perspect 113: 1826–1832. Schell LM, Gallo MV, Cook K. 2012. What’s NOT to eat—food adulteration in the context of human biology. Am J Hum Biol 24:139–148. Smith C, Richards R. 2008. Dietary intake, overweight status, and perceptions of food insecurity among homeless Minnesotan youth. Am J Hum Biol 20:550–563. Steckel RH. 2013. The hidden cost of moving up: type 2 diabetes and the escape from persistent poverty in the American South. Am J Hum Biol 25:508–515.
HUMAN BIOLOGY Steegmann AT. 2007. Human cold adaptation: an unfinished agenda. Am J Hum Biol 19:218–227. Steegmann AT. 2005. Climate, racial category, and body proportions in the U.S. Am J Hum Biol 17:393–402. Wells JCK, Griffin L, Treleaven P. 2010. Independent changes in female body shape with parity and age: a life-history approach to female adiposity. Am J Hum Biol 22:456–462. Wiley AS, Allen JS, Brewis A. 2012. Human biology eats: contemporary research and future directions. Am J Hum Biol 24:107–109.
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Wiley AS. 2005. Does milk make children grow? Relationships between milk consumption and height in NHANES 1999–2002. Am J Hum Biol 17:425–441. Wiley AS. 2010. Dairy and milk consumption and child growth: is BMI involved? An analysis of NHANES 1999–2004. Am J Hum Biol 22: 517–525. Wiley AS. 2012. Cow milk consumption, insulin-like growth factor-I, and human biology: a life history approach. Am J Hum Biol 24:130– 138.
American Journal of Human Biology
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Review
Translating Human Biology (Introduction to Special Issue) ALEXANDRA A. BREWIS1* AND JAMES J. MCKENNA2 School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 2 Department of Anthropology, University of Notre Dame, Indiana
1
Objectives: Introducing a special issue on “Translating Human Biology,” we pose two basic questions: Is human biology addressing the most critical challenges facing our species? How can the processes of translating our science be improved and innovated? Methods: We analyze articles published in American Journal of Human Biology from 2004–2013, and find there is very little human biological consideration of issues related to most of the core human challenges such as water, energy, environmental degradation, or conflict. There is some focus on disease, and considerable focus on food/nutrition. We then introduce this special volume with reference to the following articles that provide exemplars for the process of how translation and concern for broader context and impacts can be integrated into research. Conclusions: Human biology has significant unmet potential to engage more fully in translation for the public good, through consideration of the topics we focus on, the processes of doing our science, and the way we present our domain C 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. V expertise. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 27:1–5, 2015. This special issue on translating human biology, and the 2013 Human Biology Association plenary session that preceded it, asks questions we might pose to ourselves as individual scientists, but do not reflect on often as a field. How well are we contributing to the greater public good? Are we focused on the most important or relevant questions and concerns? Are we working in the best way to make a real difference? What are the fundamental challenges, and how can we best address them? Basically, how well are we doing in translating our human biology research for the public good? This issue brings together the perspectives of those who have worked hard to use human biology to “make a difference that makes a difference” in a striking diversity of ways. These include shaping public dialog and challenging assumptions through popular media, directly influencing legislators or change-maker institutions, forging public–private partnerships to advance technological innovation, and leveraging cynicism about the scientific process. The goal of this issue is to engage a critical and timely conversation in our discipline about what we should be doing, where the critical tensions, barriers, and costs lie, and to identify the better pathways forward. So, first, how well is human biology doing as a field in addressing the most critical challenge domains facing humanity? One way to assess this question is to look at the types of broader-scale human problems that human biologists are articulating with in their published research. In 2003, the late Nobel Laureate Richard Smalley laid out what he called “Humanity’s Top 10 Problems for the Next 50 Years.” His list, in order: (sustainable) energy, water, food, environment, poverty, terrorism and war, disease, education, democracy, and population. The next year, the United Nations devised their own list of the greatest 10 threats (in order): poverty, infectious disease, environmental degradation, inter-state war, civil war, genocide, other atrocities (which they list as sexual slavery, kidnapping for body parts), weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, and organized crime. If we boil these lists down, it gives us give us 13 key problems that we can use as our crude litmus test of human biology’s domain focus on major current global C 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. V
challenges over the last decade (sustainable energy, water, food, environment/environmental degradation, poverty, terrorism and war, disease, education, democracy, population growth, genocide, other atrocities, and transnational organized crime). To provide a basic assessment of the domain intersection of human biology with these grand challenges, we conducted a systematic search of research as presented in the American Journal of Human Biology in the decade since these challenges were articulated, given the AJHB’s status as the flagship journal for the Human Biology Association. Procedurally, we searched AJHB abstracts for 2004–2013 using these 13 terms and their synonyms, and then removed any cases from the search results that proved unrelated based on further reading of the abstract. The results show human biologists have had a surprisingly narrow band-width in relation to addressing these human challenges. According to this analysis, based on an absence of any published research in the AJHB, human biologists have not articulated in any obvious way with issues related to the problems of energy (at least in the sense meant by Smalley), democracy, genocide, organized crime, or (curiously) population growth. Human biologists have (also curiously) had almost nothing to say about water in the pages of the AJHB, bar Schell et al.’s (2012) consideration of the effects of eating food from toxic waterways in upstate New York. The only locatable published study that discussed atrocities (“crimes against humanity”) in the context of contemporary issues was one recent and isolated study by Jasienska (2009) examining how intergenerational ripples from slavery might explain current birth weights. Only two mentions are made of war or conflict explicitly (Bogin et al., 2007; Clarkin, 2008).
*Correspondence to: Alexandra Brewis; School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ. E-mail: [email protected] Received 18 September 2014; Revision received 30 September 2014; Accepted 5 October 2014 DOI: 10.1002/ajhb.22646 Published online 23 October 2014 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).
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Even on the point of environmental degradation and related environmental issues, there is surprisingly little. As Steegman (2007) notes, our human biological discussions of the physical environment have declined noticeably in recent years. Indeed, while 101 abstracts in the last decade reference the environment, more than half use it as a synonym for location, while most of the rest use it in a general sense to refer to any non-human conditions that affect health factors or growth. Only four articles can be found that explicitly discuss the impact of environmental issues (climate or pollution) on contemporary human biology (Bjerregaard et al., 2012; Meehan, 2012; Steegmann, 2005, 2007), while another handful relate adverse (usually high altitude) climates to human development (e.g., Adhikari et al., 2011; Dufour and Piperata, 2004; Cameron, 2007). Although the term “education” appears regularly in human biology abstracts, there are no cases in which it is in fact theorized in relation to human biological variation (rather it is usually a covariate in analyses). There is one notable exception of this in human biology, but published outside of the AJHB—Crooks (1995, 1997) careful work in Kentucky and Belize demonstrating how poverty and biology intersect to undermine school performance. The emergence of a biology of poverty (Leatherman and Goodman, 1998)—of which Crooks’s work is an especially cogent example—challenges human biologists to consider questions of the costs, causes, and consequences of poverty as both a global and local phenomena. There are 18 citations in the last decade that mention poverty or deprivation explicitly in abstracts, but if you include consideration of socioeconomic status the total rises to 80. Examples of emergent clusters of biology of poverty research found in the AJHB includes studies examining how children’s health and growth becomes comprised by such factors as household poverty and homelessness (e.g., Brewis and Lee, 2010; Greksa et al., 2007; Moffat et al., 2005; Nogueira et al., 2013; Smith and Richards, 2008), and most recently a set of studies considering of the role of low socioeconomic status and income differentials in adult obesity and related conditions using a wide array of approaches (e.g., Gartin, 2012; Hruschka, 2012; Steckel, 2013; Wells et al., 2010). The contribution of human biologists to issues around the domain of food (including “nutrition”) is, by contrast, readily apparent within the pages of the AJHB (106 citations), including a recent special issue (Wiley et al., 2012). Examples of how human biologists are using research in the domain of food to address contemporary problems includes Wiley’s unraveling of the health benefits—or lack thereof—of milk consumption (2005, 2010, 2012), Hadley et al.’s work connecting mental illness and food insecurity (Hadley and Patil, 2006; Hadley et al., 2012; Patil and Hadley, 2008), and an array of studies examining the (predominantly negative) effects of economic and other major transitions on nutritional quality (e.g., Blackwell et al., 2009, Houck et al., 2013) (e.g., Blackwell et al., 2009; Dufour and Piperata, 2008; Houck et al., 2013; Piperata et al., 2011). Disease (including “health”) is the domain of greatest activity over the last decade (278 citations). Some good examples of human biology’s attention to contemporary disease issues include: considerations of the fetal and developmental origins of chronic disease (Gluckman et al., 2007; Pike, 2005; Kuzawa, 2007) that ultimately American Journal of Human Biology
point to the broader importance of investing specifically in better in maternal and prenatal health; the work of McGarvey et al. in Samoa unraveling the chronic disease effects of modernization in developing country settings (e.g., Bitton et al., 2006; Hawley et al., 2012); and the lessons Schell et al. have provided on how toxic exposures are amplified in urban environments (Schell et al., 2012). Most recently we have seen a florescence of work focused directly and indirectly on factors that shape vulnerability to obesity, including a special issue (Brewis, 2012). In the pages of the AJHB we have a growing concern in the last few years with the health impacts of various forms of social exclusion related to prejudice, discrimination and stigma in an economically and socially divided and differentiated world (Brewis and Wutich, 2012; Gravlee and Dressler, 2005; McClure et al., 2010). So, this analysis demonstrates an interesting lack of intersection between human biology and some keys issues human biologists could be helping to better theorize and understand (such as water, war or conflict, and climate change), and those areas in which they are already exerting active influence (food and nutrition). But, a focus on the process of translation itself is another area of research, perhaps more germane to how we individually focus our programs of research that articulates a different set of issues: what should human biologists be focused on—what are we best able to address, and what is the best way to address it? Thus, to our second key point here: Are we going about the process of translation in the best ways? How we think about, and then go about doing, translation—is another, and arguably the far more important, way to consider both the challenges and successes of engaging human biology for the public good. It is this concern for process that defines the selection of papers we have offered here in the special issue. This concern tackles head-on the observation that, while often embedded implicitly in much of the research we do, a deep concern for improving translation is rarely the direct focus of our scholarly discussions (cf. Albalak, 2009). What does appear is mostly published outside of our disciplinary home-range, such as in applied journals. Stepping into this mute space within human biology, the authors here bring together a range of important examples and observations on the broader questions we asked them to reflect on: what are meaningful, satisfying, and effective ways to actually use our research and domain expertise in human biology to make a difference? Are we emphasizing the right things? Is our disciplinary framework, our training, or our academic reward system sufficient to the broader task? Basically, what can we do to enhance and ultimately maximize the impact of our efforts for the public good, and our own sense of satisfaction in doing so? Ultimately, the answers to all these questions are found stitched through careers in the unfolding research programs, shifting commitments, and evolving passions of each human biologist, including those represented in this volume. In this vein, our special issue begins with one of our disciplinary exemplars, a team that shows exactly what partnership research is all about and how—as it has grown over time—it has come to reflect the belief and commitment that what we do with living people must ultimately be focused substantively on what we do for them. University of Albany’s Schell et al. have been working to successfully address a complex of issues demonstrating
HUMAN BIOLOGY
how toxic environments have shaped biology in both tribal and impoverished inner-city settings of upstate New York for many years. “Backyard” community-based projects can in fact be some of the most challenging we do, in part because ongoing visibility is intrinsic to the enterprise and the political and emotional stakes can be very high as those most affected participate in almost every level of the research. Whenever possible, culturally appropriate methods and procedures invite if not require community participation and consensus building which is critical throughout the research. As beautifully described elsewhere, Schell’s (1997) “risk-focused model,” around which some of his present work finds relevance, emerged from a study of multigenerational, deleterious consequences of lead exposure on children’s cognitive performance. Lead exposure generally had the effect of limiting adolescent and young adult students’ abilities to excel mentally and psychologically (or at least to perform satisfactorily) in school. The intersection of these injurious health effects on behavior and cognitive skills were found to be cumulative and altogether reduced opportunities for future employment, therein increasing the chances that lifetime environmental assaults would compound. That is, the lower salaries imposed by deficient educations prevented already injured people from moving away from toxic neighborhoods, facilitating even greater lead exposure in succeeding, related generations that continue to be exposed to the same toxins as their parents were (Schell, 1992). The models Schell et al. employs acknowledge that risk in stratified societies is granted by people’s observed social and biological characteristics. As they found among Akwesasne community members, risk can be identified as “focused” because several different types of risk commonly occur simultaneously in individuals with shared characteristics contributing to this compounding effect. Perhaps challenging popular wisdom, their research makes clear that most of the damage to individuals is not due to their own poor choices, but rather results from the larger economic and social forces beyond their own and even community control. What is remarkable about this research is that the results (like tests of toxicant levels or physical growth assessments) wherever possible are returned to participants or their physicians even as data collection proceeds. This process produces immediate, tangible benefits. If a commitment to local communities is one way to promote translational scholarship, others have worked with the same passion to consider how our human biological knowledge might be more globally applicable at the other end of the scale. One means to translate, although not necessarily an easy one, is through policy influence. David Pelletier, trained in Paul Baker’s human adaptability framework, has been working at the policy coal face for years. In his article here, he discusses the many frustrations and small victories of using human biological expertise to influence lawmakers and global institutions (such as WHO) to do the sensible, thoughtful thing in regard to the critical goal of improving global nutrition metrics and standards. Indeed, Pelletier’s work is remarkable as much for its breadth as well as for its impact in helping to create positive change, whether getting the FDA to use his work to guide policies on genetically engineered food, getting worldwide organizations to acknowledge the role of specific political economies in formulating nutrition pol-
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icies, helping local and national agencies to measure and assess rural African crop failures, or even being able to test hypotheses about diet and cardiovascular diseases in Polynesia. If Schell and Pelletier are senior scholars in our field with decades of field and outreach experience, our next paper comes from a more recently trained colleague, pushing the boundaries of translational work for our field in new and arguably more daring ways. “No health without mental health” is a foundational principle of MD/PhD Brandon Kohrt’s contributions and, indeed, research program on biocultural aspects of mental health (anxiety, PTSD, depression) in Nepal and Mongolia. He has played a critical role in uncovering some great human tragedies through his parallel work as a filmmaker and a psychiatrist, and he is taking his scientific articulation of mental health issues in war to shape a broader and more human public dialog about human suffering in ways that feel both fresh and important. In this issue he speaks to the fact that two fifths of the world populations live in countries without mental health legislation. This figure assumes more meaning when he illuminates exactly what it means that depression is a leading cause of disability adjusted life years globally. And he stresses that biomarkers (including social genomics) and the science that produces them are critical in determining and discovering the shared social determinant pathways in physical and mental health. These same or similar pathways observed in Asia, we can presume, may play some role in the impairments to North American children’s cognition by exposure to lead toxins about which Schell speaks. Kohrt’s message here is that to move forward human biology will need to be even more engaged in policy formulation that first prove the legitimacy of mental health as a major aspect of human biology, and accordingly contribute to research designs that measure outcomes of the lifelong benefits of early mental health promotion. Our next paper, by bioculturally oriented bioarcheologists Rachel Watkins and Jennifer Muller, lays out how positionality—being explicit about one’s one point of view—changes what we think of as the “right way” to do our science. Using the Cobb collection, a set of skeletal and written materials related to African Americans living in Washington DC before 1970, they show how a gendered and racialized stance can reveal unseen biases in how we categorize and bound our biological data. Their explanation shows how the very attempt of gender or racial neutrality can in itself insert biases into how we understand and react to data. By arguing that an overt political agenda can act to expand and improve our science, they give us new suggestions about how we can strive as human biologists to make a difference through not only what we study, but how we go about studying it. Christopher Stojanowski and William Duncan lay out a different form of proposal for bioarchaeology, outlining other ways this relatively young area can embolden its engagement in public discussion and debate. They ask human biologists to reflect deeply on what types of messages the field should be sharing and advancing to best align the research, the public interest, and what the public is actually interested in. This paper advances the importance of engaging in social media, a means of science communication of which human biology to date has been extremely shy and accordingly had little—let alone American Journal of Human Biology
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thoughtful—engagement. This is an area where younger scholars are going to have to lead the more senior, and it is gratifying to see the intellectual arguments for why social media is very important to the relevancy and impact of our field so clearly articulated herein. Out last paper includes three other innovative and energetic junior colleagues all working in an explicitly biocultural framework—Deborah Williams, Sarah Trainer, and Daniel Hruschka. The increasing concern around the “problem” of obesity provides an important domain in which human biologists can be funded and engaged in public health and other intervention and prevention efforts. As this article makes clear, how we talk about and conceptualize that “problem” will have a massive impact on our capacity to participate effectively in those translation efforts. Their approach to collaborative work shows why we need to be explicit about, even embrace, a very necessary cynicism about the limits of both social and medical approaches to obesity, and use those critiques to work within and on the “problem” rather than simply meditate upon the futility of the broader enterprise. And this explanation of the work being done within this most tricky and very current area also demonstrates—full circle back to Schell et al.’s paper—a collaborative ethos in contemporary problem solving. Using insights from human biology is a very important and under-utilized viewpoint in the broader public sphere. It may well be that the contemporary status and impact of human biology in relation to attacking larger global issues facing humankind into the 21st century have some distance to go along a potential spectrum of research possibilities to which our unique skills and methods could potentially make contributions. But that said we are hopeful, no, perhaps certain that what is presented here represent exemplars of what can be done, produced not just by exceptional human biologists, but exceptional human beings. We are proud to present their work and presume you will be as inspired as much as we are—perhaps to even follow in their tracks. LITERATURE CITED Adhikari A, Sen A, Brumbaugh RC, Schwartz J. 2011. Altered growth patterns of a mountain Ok population of Papua New Guinea over 25 years of change. Am J Hum Biol 23:325–332. Albalak R. 2009. From biological anthropology to applied public health: Epidemiological approaches to the study of infectious disease. Am J Hum Biol 21:687–693. Bitton A, McGarvey ST, Viali S. 2006. Anger expression and lifestyle incongruity interactions on blood pressure in Samoan adults. Am J Hum Biol 18:369–376. Bjerregaard P, Chatwood S, Denning B, Joseph L, Young TK. 2012. Sex ratios in the arctic-do man-made chemicals matter? Am J Hum Biol 24: 165–169. Blackwell AD, Pryor G, Pozo J, Tiwia W, Sugiyama LS. 2009. Growth and market integration in Amazonia: A comparison of growth indicators between Shuar, Shiwiar, and nonindigenous school children. Am J Hum Biol 21:161–171. Bogin B, Silva MIV, Rios L. 2007. Life history trade-offs in human growth: adaptation or pathology? Am J Hum Biol 19:631–642. Brewis A, Lee S. 2010. Children’s work, earnings, and nutrition in urban Mexican shantytowns. Am J Hum Biol 22:60–68. Brewis AA, Wutich A. 2012. Explicit versus implicit fat-stigma. Am J Hum Biol 24:332–338. Brewis AA. 2012. Obesity and human biology: toward a global perspective. Am J Hum Biol 24:258–260. Cameron N. 2007. Growth patterns in adverse environments. Am J Hum Biol 19:615–621. Clarkin PF. 2008. Adiposity and height of adult Hmong refugees: relationship with war-related early malnutrition and later migration. Am J Hum Biol 20:174–184.
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Crooks DL. 1995. American children at risk: poverty and its consequences for children’s health, growth, and school achievement. Am J Phys Anthropol 38:57–86. Crooks DL. 1997. Biocultural factors in school achievement for Mopan children in Belize. Am Anthropol 99:586–601. Dufour DL, Piperata BA. 2008. Energy expenditure among farmers in developing countries: what do we know? Am J Hum Biol 20:249– 258. Dufour DL, Piperata BA. 2004. Rural-to-urban migration in Latin America: an update and thoughts on the model. Am J Hum Biol 16:395–404. Gartin M. 2012. Food deserts and nutritional risk in Paraguay. Am J Hum Biol 24:296–301. Gluckman PD, Hanson MA, Beedle AS. 2007. Early life events and their consequences for later disease: a life history and evolutionary perspective. Am J Hum Biol 19:1–19. Graves BM. 2010. Ritualized combat as an indicator of intrasexual selection effects on male life history evolution. Am J Hum Biol 22:45–49. Gravlee CC, Dressler WW. 2005. Skin pigmentation, self-perceived color, and arterial blood pressure in Puerto Rico. Am J Hum Biol 17:195–206. Greksa LP, Rie N, Islam ABMR, Maki U, Omori K. 2007. Growth and health status of street children in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Am J Hum Biol 19:51–60. Hadley C, Patil CL. 2006. Food insecurity in rural Tanzania is associated with maternal anxiety and depression. Am J Hum Biol 18:359–368. Hadley C, Tessema F, Muluneh AT. 2012. Household food insecurity and caregiver distress: equal threats to child nutritional status? Am J Hum Biol 24:149–157. Hawley NL, Wier LM, Cash HL, Viali S, Tuitele J, McGarvey ST. 2012. Modernization and cardiometabolic risk in Samoan adolescents. Am J Hum Biol 24:551–557. Houck K, Sorensen MV, Lu F, Alban D, Alvarez K, Hidobro D, Doljanin C, Ona AI. 2013. The effects of market integration on childhood growth and nutritional status: the dual burden of under- and over-nutrition in the Northern Ecuadorian Amazon. Am J Hum Biol 25:524–533. Hruschka DJ. 2012. Do economic constraints on food choice make people fat? A critical review of two hypotheses for the poverty–obesity paradox. Am J Hum Biol 24:277–285. Jasienska G. 2009. Low birth weight of contemporary African Americans: an intergenerational effect of slavery? Am J Hum Biol 2009;21:16–24. Jasienska G, Jasienski M. 2008. Interpopulation, interindividual, intercycle, and intracycle natural variation in progesterone levels: a quantitative assessment and implications for population studies. Am J Hum Biol 20:35–42. Kuzawa CW. 2007. Developmental origins of life history: growth, productivity, and reproduction. Am J Hum Biol 19:654–661. Leatherman T, Goodman A. 1998. Expanding the biocultural synthesis toward a biology of poverty. Am J Phys Anthropol 102:1–3. McClure HH, Snodgrass JJ, Martinez CR, Eddy JM, Jim enez RA, Isiordia LE. 2010. Discrimination, psychosocial stress, and health among Latin American immigrants in Oregon. Am J Hum Biol 22:421–423. Moffat T, Galloway T, Latham J. 2005. Stature and adiposity among children in contrasting neighborhoods in the city of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Am J Hum Biol 17:355–367. Meehan TD. 2012. Energetics of thermoregulation by an industrious endotherm. Am J Hum Biol 24:713–715. Nogueira H, Gama A, Mour~ ao I, Marques V, Ferr~ ao M, Padez C. 2013. The associations of SES, obesity, sport activity, and perceived neighborhood environments: is there a model of environmental injustice penalizing portuguese children? Am J Hum Biol 25:434–436. Patil C, Hadley C. 2008. Symptoms of anxiety and depression and mother’s marital status: an exploratory analysis of polygyny and psychosocial stress. Am J Hum Biol 20:475–477. Pike IL. 2005. Maternal stress and fetal responses: evolutionary perspectives on preterm delivery. Am J Hum Biol 17:55–65. Piperata BA, Ivanova SA, Da-gloria Pedro, Veiga G, Polsky A, Spence JE, Murrieta RSS. 2011. Nutrition in transition: dietary patterns of rural Amazonian women during a period of economic change. Am J Hum Biol 23:458–469. Schell, LM, Ravenscroft J, Cole M, Jacobs A, Newman J, and the Akwesasne Task Force on the Environment. 2005. Health disparities and toxicant exposure of Akwesasne Mohawk young adults: a partnership approach to research. Environ Health Perspect 113: 1826–1832. Schell LM, Gallo MV, Cook K. 2012. What’s NOT to eat—food adulteration in the context of human biology. Am J Hum Biol 24:139–148. Smith C, Richards R. 2008. Dietary intake, overweight status, and perceptions of food insecurity among homeless Minnesotan youth. Am J Hum Biol 20:550–563. Steckel RH. 2013. The hidden cost of moving up: type 2 diabetes and the escape from persistent poverty in the American South. Am J Hum Biol 25:508–515.
HUMAN BIOLOGY Steegmann AT. 2007. Human cold adaptation: an unfinished agenda. Am J Hum Biol 19:218–227. Steegmann AT. 2005. Climate, racial category, and body proportions in the U.S. Am J Hum Biol 17:393–402. Wells JCK, Griffin L, Treleaven P. 2010. Independent changes in female body shape with parity and age: a life-history approach to female adiposity. Am J Hum Biol 22:456–462. Wiley AS, Allen JS, Brewis A. 2012. Human biology eats: contemporary research and future directions. Am J Hum Biol 24:107–109.
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Wiley AS. 2005. Does milk make children grow? Relationships between milk consumption and height in NHANES 1999–2002. Am J Hum Biol 17:425–441. Wiley AS. 2010. Dairy and milk consumption and child growth: is BMI involved? An analysis of NHANES 1999–2004. Am J Hum Biol 22: 517–525. Wiley AS. 2012. Cow milk consumption, insulin-like growth factor-I, and human biology: a life history approach. Am J Hum Biol 24:130– 138.
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