Digital Commons Network^™

Ancient Pathogens Provide A Window Into Health And Well-Being, Cecil M. Lewis Jr., Mercy Y. Akinyi, Sharon Dewitte, Anne C. Stone

Faculty Publications

This perspective draws on the record of ancient pathogen genomes and microbiomes illuminating patterns of infectious disease over the course of the Holocene in order to address the following question. How did major changes in living circumstances involving the transition to and intensification of farming alter pathogens and their distributions? Answers to this question via ancient DNA research provide a rapidly expanding picture of pathogen evolution and in concert with archaeological and historical data, give a temporal and behavioral context for heath in the past that is relevant for challenges facing the world today, including the rise of novel pathogens.

The Intersections Of Sex And Inequality In A Mixed Status Industrial London Sample, Anna Green

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Saint Pancras Burial Ground and its inhumated priests, paupers, aristocrats, and migrants provide a unique perspective into the interactions between sex and inequality in 18th and 19th century industrial London. Frequencies of caries, dental calculus, periodontal disease, linear enamel hypoplasia, periapical lesions, tuberculosis, treponematosis, rickets, and trauma among 224 females from St. Pancras were compared to 27 low-status females from Crossbones Burial Ground and 74 primarily high-status females from Chelsea Old Church Cemetery. Based on the information known about those buried at St. Pancras, it was hypothesized that the frequencies of health indicators in St. Pancras should fall between the …

Community Development, Health, And Wellness: The City Of Bloomington Township’S Wellness Lifestyle Series, Jack White

Stevenson Center for Community and Economic Development—Student Research

The City of Bloomington Township, as part of its workfare program, offers to its recipients and the public the Wellness Lifestyle Series. It is a series of classes focused on health and wellness from a holistic perspective. The Series is a direct response to the 2019 McLean County Community Health Needs Assessment that identified Access to Care, Behavioral Health (Mental Health and Substance Abuse), and Healthy Eating/Active Living (Exercise, Nutrition, Obesity, and Food Access/Insecurity) as priority needs for the community. The Wellness Lifestyle Series is a creative solution for how community development can address the health and wellness of individuals …

Contextualizing The Health Of U.S. Farmworkers, Gabrielle Hyde

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

Farmworkers often exist in vulnerable social and occupational positions that make accessing health care a challenge. This literature review seeks to outline the health of U.S. farmworkers in the context of these vulnerabilities through a review of the existing literature. It provides a short background to understand how we have become reliant on immigration to feed our nation and to give a snapshot of where these farmworkers come from and what their health concerns are. A key topic in this literature review is the social context of these health burdens including the attitudes of providers, farmworker’s perceptions of their own …

The Biological Manifestation Of Health, Culture, And Disease In Turn Of The Twentieth Century San Francisco, Trisha Walker

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Between 1880 and 1920, a period known as the Great Migration, the city of San Francisco became one of the most diverse areas in the United States due to the steady arrival of immigrants. These groups of immigrants primarily consisted of individuals from China, Japan, Ireland, Italy, Eastern Europe, and Mexico. However, each of these groups faced various forms of xenophobia from American-born citizens when they tried to either earn a living or assimilate into American society. These immigrant groups were frequently impeded by who was, and who was not, considered to be “white” in the eyes of the dominant …

The Intersections Of Health And Wealth: Socioeconomic Status, Frailty, And Mortality In Industrial England, Samantha Lee Yaussy

Theses and Dissertations

Socioeconomic status (SES) is considered one of the most powerful predictors of mortality today. However, studies of health in living populations and bioarchaeological studies of health in the past often oversimplify the connection between SES and mortality and overlook heterogeneity in frailty within a population and the potential for multiple types of marginalization to be layered within a single individual. This dissertation project uses skeletal samples to examine the interactions of SES, demographic characteristics (e.g., age and sex), exposure to physiological stressors, and mortality in the context of industrialization in 18th- and 19th-century England. Skeletal data from four industrial-era cemeteries …

The Bioarchaeology Of The Tugalo Site (9st1): Diet, Disease, And Health Of The Past, Nompumelelo Beryl Hlophe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Tugalo site is a prehistoric and early historic Native American site located in northeast Georgia along the upper Savannah River basin, near the junction of Toccoa Creek and the Tugalo River. According to archaeological materials analyzed from the site it was occupied from ca. A.D. 1100 to 1600 (Anderson et al. 1995). Although archaeological investigations of the site revealed basic characteristics of its chronology and architecture, very little analysis and reporting of the skeletal remains from Tugalo has been completed. By analyzing data collected by Williamson (1998) concerning the age and sex of the burials, the presence or absence …

(Not) Everything Is Good And Easy: Language-Related Healthcare Experiences Of Two Groups Of Low-Income Latina Mothers, Aria Anna Walsh-Felz

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This cross-sectional, comparative, qualitative study explored language-related issues experienced by low-income Spanish-speaking mothers navigating pediatric care for their children in Hillsborough County, Florida. Hospitals, pediatric clinics, specialists, and dental care have differing degrees of linguistic accessibility and accommodations for limited English proficient families. Two groups of mothers were interviewed: bilingual (n=9) and Spanish-speaking limited-English proficient (SSLEP) mothers (n=21). These groups perceived the effect of language on navigating pediatric healthcare differently, creating tension in perceptions and experience between them. Such tensions included SSLEP mothers expressing satisfaction with pediatric care simultaneously with shortcomings in communication. SSLEP mothers said that everything was easy, …

Linearly Stressed To Death: Consideration Of Early Childhood Stress As A Main Contributor To The Regional Variability In Classic Maya Mortuary Profiles, Nicholas Billstrand

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Late and Terminal Classic periods were times of great social, economic, and political change in Maya civilization. Scholars have suggested that increasing levels of dietary stress during this time may have been the result of ecological instability, drought, warfare, and significant levels of population movement across the Maya lowlands. All of these processes may have affected human health and left measurable markers of stress in human skeletal material. The burial population recovered from two sites on Ambergris Caye, located near the coast of Belize, have significantly more sub-adult individuals than sites in inland Belize, such as Actuncan, suggesting the …

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. …

Health, Nutrition, And Disease In Rural Northern Jordan: A Study Of Enamel Defects Related To Childhood Stress In Skeletal Samples From The Bronze Age To The Byzantine Period, Teresa Veronica Wilson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Northern Jordan has seen periods of climate change, political transformation, and economic prosperity between the Late Bronze Age to the end of the Byzantine period. This research tests the assumption that the rural agricultural communities of this region were undernourished by examining the dentition for periodic childhood stress. Canine teeth from five sites (Ya'amun, Sa'ad, Yasileh, Natfieh, and Waqqas) that covered the time periods in question were collected to study overall quality of life.

The teeth were thin-sectioned and examined under a light microscope. Digital micrographs were made of the thin-sectioned teeth in order to record the number and location …

The Archaeology Of 19th-Century Health And Hygiene At The Sullivan Street Site, New York City, Jean E. Howson

Northeast Historical Archaeology

The households represented by archaeological remains at the Sullivan Street site in Greenwich Village are used to explore issues related to health care in 19th-century New York City. Backyard features and domestic artifact assemblages are discussed in the context of institutional development and specific changes in medical practice. Consumer choices are seen as responses to differential access to sanitation, medical care, and information. Social class had a significant effect on both the infrastructure and material culture of health and hygiene for these households.

Toward A Measurement Of The Adequacy Of Health Services In Rural Utah, Michael K. Miller

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The research reported in this thesis was an exploratory nature undertaken for the purpose of developing a measure of the adequacy of health services in three rural counties in Utah. The three counties included in the study area were Beaver, Piute, and Wayne.

Adequacy of health services in the three-county area was measured on the basis of (1) the general population's, or consumer's, perception of the adequacy of the existing services, (2) the professional's or provider's perception of the adequacy of the existing services, and (3) adequacy of the existing services determined by a comparison with an established standard.

The …