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The Quotidian Quantifier: Fitness Tracking And The Mundanity Of Surveillance, Marianne Neal-Joyce
The Quotidian Quantifier: Fitness Tracking And The Mundanity Of Surveillance, Marianne Neal-Joyce
Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation uses the rise of wearable fitness tracking as a lens through which to examine the predominance of quantification in everyday life. With over a third of U.S. adults owning a tracker, the increased use of body-surveilling technologies provides an opportunity to investigate some central sociological questions. In this project, I ask why individuals track their health behaviors with technology and how we may understand this behavior in the context of medical and corporate interests. I further ask how people think about the privacy implications of their use and what concerns they have about data collection and sharing. I …
Policing And Health: Police Encounters As A Fundamental Cause Of Racial Health Disparities, Richard S. Carbonaro
Policing And Health: Police Encounters As A Fundamental Cause Of Racial Health Disparities, Richard S. Carbonaro
Doctoral Dissertations
Structural racism has taken many forms throughout American history and to this day continues to drive social, economic, and health inequalities. Mass incarceration is a modern tool of social marginalization with well documented and deep-rooted racial inequalities. Research has continually shown that mass incarceration negatively impacts the health of disadvantaged communities. Even police stops, the most common and mundane form of criminal justice contact has been linked with deleterious health outcomes at the individual and community level. In this dissertation, I identify specific social and biological mechanisms connecting encounters with the police and health outcomes. In the first chapter, I …
Correctional Landscape Studies: Improving The Restorative Potential, Allyson Fairweather
Correctional Landscape Studies: Improving The Restorative Potential, Allyson Fairweather
Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning Masters Projects
The United States is the world’s leader in incarceration with 2.2 million people currently in the nation’s prisons and jails. On average, one-third of former offenders will return to prison for re-offence within three years of their release (Bureau of Justice Statistics 2018). This cycle is known as recidivism, and demonstrates a major reflection of the criminal justice system’s failure to provide rehabilitation that meets the needs of the incarcerated population. However, horticultural therapy in prison may offer a sliver of hope. Also referred to as Green Prison Programs (GPPs), studies indicate that participants in these programs gain valuable job …
‘A Better Country To Die In’: Self-Determination, Drugs, And The Limits Of Medical Assistance In Dying In Canada, Wendy Pringle
‘A Better Country To Die In’: Self-Determination, Drugs, And The Limits Of Medical Assistance In Dying In Canada, Wendy Pringle
Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation examines Canada’s legalization of medical assistance in dying (MAiD). Specifically, it focuses on how the debates surrounding the legalization process, the cultural history of euthanasia drugs, and the ethical dimensions of disability shaped assisted dying outcomes in the country in the period between the precedent-setting February 2015 Carter v. Canada Supreme Court case and the legislation, passed in June 2016, that enacted legalized MAiD. This mixed methods project uses discursive analysis of media texts, pharmacological history, and rhetorical analysis of first-person testimonies. The first analytic chapter, “Self-Determination, Euthanasia, and the Right to Die,” considers how the shift toward …
Three Essays On Health, Risk And Behavior, Irene Mussio
Three Essays On Health, Risk And Behavior, Irene Mussio
Doctoral Dissertations
Health-related decisions could be explained by a variety of factors, ranging from the perception of the risk the activity involves to the knowledge of the long-term effects of the decision. An individual deciding to eat unhealthy or not to exercise could face health problems in the long-run. Individuals with health issues have been found to be more risk averse when it comes to financial decisions, such as portfolio allocation. Financial incentives to engage in healthier behaviors have been successful but short-lived. Prior research leaves many questions such as: What are the factors that explain why an individual decides to engage …
Three Essays On Network Dynamics And Liminality, Diego F. Leal
Three Essays On Network Dynamics And Liminality, Diego F. Leal
Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation focuses on the emergence and evolution of social networks by paying particular attention to the spanning of cultural boundaries that segregate actors in the context of specific societies. In particular, I use systems science methods to study the bridging of cultural holes in small and relatively dense artificial societies, as well as in an American high school. I also study the significance of local triadic configurations in giving rise to the highly hierarchical system of aggregate-level migration flows in place in the Americas during the late 20th century. I use the concept of liminality as a way to …
Does Health Aid Reduce Infant And Child Mortality From Diarrhea In Sub-Saharan Africa?, Lynda Pickbourn, Léonce Ndikumana
Does Health Aid Reduce Infant And Child Mortality From Diarrhea In Sub-Saharan Africa?, Lynda Pickbourn, Léonce Ndikumana
PERI Working Papers
Achieving sustained improvements in health outcomes remains a challenge for sub-Saharan Africa, where diarrhea remains a leading cause of death in children under the age of five. This paper examines the impact of foreign aid to the health sector on diarrhea mortality in children under five in 47 sub -Saharan African countries, using panel data on the sectoral allocation of official development assistance in conjunction with country -level data on health outcomes. After controlling for fixed effects and the potential endogeneity of health aid, we find that increased health aid and increased public health expenditure are associated with lower diarrhea …
Three Essays On The Social Determinants Of Early Childhood Health And Development, Andrew Barenberg
Three Essays On The Social Determinants Of Early Childhood Health And Development, Andrew Barenberg
Doctoral Dissertations
This three-paper dissertation examines the social determinants of early childhood and in-utero health. The first chapter examines the impact of early childhood stunting on educational outcome in Tanzania. Using the extent of third-trimester overlap with the Tanzania hunger season to create an exogenous variation in stunting, I find that a one standard deviation stunting decreases educational achievement by .88 school years compared to a child's siblings. A placebo group not affected by the hunger season is used to confirm that in-utero nutrition deprivation is the cause of the education differences. The second paper utilizes the food price shocks and price …
Illegal Hunting On The Masoala Peninsula Of Madagascar: Its Extent, Causes, And Impact On Lemurs And Humans, Cortni Borgerson
Illegal Hunting On The Masoala Peninsula Of Madagascar: Its Extent, Causes, And Impact On Lemurs And Humans, Cortni Borgerson
Doctoral Dissertations
Two of the greatest challenges we face in the world today are: (1) reducing human poverty and malnutrition; and (2) slowing the loss of global biodiversity. Madagascar ranks nearly last in global food security, and is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world. Within Madagascar, the Masoala Peninsula is one of our greatest conservation priorities. I use one year (July 2011 – June 2012) of lemur surveys, habitat sampling, direct observations of forest mammal hunting, eleven months of daily 24-hour recall surveys, and interviews of all households in one focal village on the Masoala peninsula of Madagascar to …
The Political Ecology Of Early Childhood Lead Exposure At The New York African Burial Ground, Joseph Jones
The Political Ecology Of Early Childhood Lead Exposure At The New York African Burial Ground, Joseph Jones
Doctoral Dissertations
Nearly 25 years ago federal officials unearthed over 400 skeletal remains in Lower Manhattan. The site of the excavation was the New York African Burial Ground (NYABG), a 17th- and 18th-century cemetery for the city’s mostly enslaved African population. Today, the burial ground serves as a reminder of New York’s 200-year experiment with slavery. It is the first National Monument to honor enslaved African New Yorkers. This recognition is a testament to the resolve of African American descendants and their allies who, through political activism, would see these ancestors afforded in death some of the respect denied them in life. …
Culture, Inequality, And Health: Evidence From The Midus And Midja Comparison, Jiyoung Park, Carol Ryff, Yuri Miyamoto, Jennifer Boylan, Christopher Coe, Mayumi Karasawa, Norito Kawakami, Chiemi Kan, Gayle Love, Cynthia Levine, Hazel Markus, Shinobu Kitayama
Culture, Inequality, And Health: Evidence From The Midus And Midja Comparison, Jiyoung Park, Carol Ryff, Yuri Miyamoto, Jennifer Boylan, Christopher Coe, Mayumi Karasawa, Norito Kawakami, Chiemi Kan, Gayle Love, Cynthia Levine, Hazel Markus, Shinobu Kitayama
Psychological and Brain Sciences Faculty Publication Series
This article seeks to forge scientific connections between three overarching themes (culture, inequality, health). Although the influence of cultural context on human experience has gained notable research prominence, it has rarely embraced another large arena of science focused on the influence social hierarchies have on how well and how long people live. That literature is increasingly focused psychosocial factors, working interactively with biological and brain-based mechanisms, to account for why those with low socioeconomic standing have poorer health. Our central question is whether and how these processes might vary by cultural context. We draw on emerging findings from two parallel …
The Link Between Insecure Attachment And Depression: Two Potential Pathways, Cassandra C. Devito
The Link Between Insecure Attachment And Depression: Two Potential Pathways, Cassandra C. Devito
Masters Theses
A wealth of research demonstrates a strong link between insecure attachment and depressive symptoms. However, thus far no work has discerned different pathways to depression for each of the insecure subtypes: anxious and avoidant attachment. This work looks at the behaviors that couples engage in during a conflict interaction as a potential mediator for the attachment-depression relationship, with different behaviors mediating the link between anxious and avoidant attachment and depression. For anxiously attached individuals, it was predicted that lack of support and response from the partner (actual or perceived) would account for the relationship between their attachment and depressive symptoms. …
Impact Of Sectoral Allocation Of Foreign Aid On Gender Equity And Human Development, Léonce Ndikumana
Impact Of Sectoral Allocation Of Foreign Aid On Gender Equity And Human Development, Léonce Ndikumana
Léonce Ndikumana
While developing countries have made some progress in achieving human development since the turn of the century, many are still lagging behind in important human development goals such as education, health, nutrition and access to clean drinking water and improved sanitation. Moreover, gender equity remains a major challenge in most countries. In this paper, we examine the role that foreign aid plays in generating these outcomes, using panel data from OECD-DAC on the sectoral allocation of development aid, in conjunction with country-level data on public expenditures, human development outcomes and other economic, social and political indicators. Specifically, the paper attempts …
Racial Disparities In The Cognition-Health Relationship, Owen Thompson
Racial Disparities In The Cognition-Health Relationship, Owen Thompson
Economics Department Working Paper Series
This paper investigates how the association between cognitive achievement and self-rated health in middle age differs by race, and attempts to explain these differences. The role of cognition in health determination has received only limited empirical attention, and even less is known about how race may affect this relationship. Using data from the NLSY, I find that while whites with higher cognitive achievement scores tend to report substantially better general health, this relationship is far weaker or wholly absent among blacks. Further tests suggest that about 35% of this racial difference can be explained by behavioral decisions during adulthood, and …
Dynamic Model Pooling Methodology For Improving Aberration Detection Algorithms, Brenton J. Sellati
Dynamic Model Pooling Methodology For Improving Aberration Detection Algorithms, Brenton J. Sellati
Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014
Syndromic surveillance is defined generally as the collection and statistical analysis of data which are believed to be leading indicators for the presence of deleterious activities developing within a system. Conceptually, syndromic surveillance can be applied to any discipline in which it is important to know when external influences manifest themselves in a system by forcing it to depart from its baseline. Comparing syndromic surveillance systems have led to mixed results, where models that dominate in one performance metric are often sorely deficient in another. This results in a zero-sum trade off where one performance metric must be afforded greater …
Space Of Vulnerability In Poverty And Health: Political Ecology And Biocultural Analysis, Thomas L. Leatherman
Space Of Vulnerability In Poverty And Health: Political Ecology And Biocultural Analysis, Thomas L. Leatherman
Thomas L Leatherman
In this article I present a political-ecological approach for biocultural analyses that attempts to synthesize perspectives from anthropological political economy and those from ecological anthropology and human adaptability approaches. The approach is used to examine contexts and consequences of vulnerability among Andean peoples in southern Peru, and specifically the ongoing and dialectical relationships between poverty, illness, and household production. Household demographic composition, class position, economic status, and interpersonal relations are all important in shaping their experience with illness, and coping capacity in dealing with the consequences of illness on household livelihood. I suggest that the contexts and consequences of vulnerability …