Search

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2007.09.005 Byline: Thomas W. McDade Keywords: Stress; Neuroendocrine biomarkers; Allostatic load; Culture; Social relations; Health; Taiwan; USA; Neuroendocrine allostatic load (NAL) Abstract: A new generation of research in population health is drawing on models and methods from the social and biomedical sciences to combine rich measurement of everyday contexts with objective measures of physiological function and health in field-based settings. We are at the beginning of an exciting era of discovery, and this commentary focuses on two questions of particular importance to comparative research. First, how do we use biological measures to define 'health'? Second, how do we define and measure social context, particularly across cultural settings? Answers to these questions, as well as others addressed by scholars working at the intersection of the social and biomedical sciences, will ultimately lead to a better, more multidimensional understanding of human biology and health. Author Affiliation: Department of Anthropology and Cells to Society (C2S): The Center on Social Disparities and Health at the Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University, 1810 Hinman Avenue, Evanston, IL 60208, USA

Researchers and development organizations have shown interest in individual empowerment because it presumably improves well-being. Estimates of empowerment's effects on well-being contain biases from the potential endogeneity of empowerment. Using data from a sexually egalitarian and highly autarkic society of foragers and horticulturalists in the Bolivian Amazon, the Tsimane', we overcome the problems that this poses by: (1) matching spouses' responses to the same questions about who makes decisions or who breaks ties in 10 domains to improve accuracy in measures of empowerment; and (2) using parental attributes of spouses as instrumental variables for spousal empowerment. Outcomes include two anthropometric indices of short-run nutritional status: body-mass index and age and sex-standardized z scores of mid-arm muscle area. The amount of empowerment of household heads did not affect their nutritional status or other indicators of their well-being, such as income, wealth, expenditures, happiness, social capital, or self-perceived health. It also did not affect the nutritional status of their offspring. Nor did it affect the difference in income, wealth, or monetary expenditures between spouses. The insubstantial effects persisted with other definitions of empowerment or types of regressions. We end with a discussion of why empowerment, despite its popularity in development discourse, has such tenuous finks with objective indicators of well-being, and the implication of this finding for future studies of empowerment's effects. Keywords: Anthropometries; Empowerment; Nutritional status; Tsimane'; Bolivia; Human capital

Researchers have found a positive association between income inequality and poor individual health. To explain the link, researchers have hypothesized that income inequality erodes community social capital, which unleashes negative emotions, stress, and stress behaviors that hurt health. Few studies have tested the hypothesized path. Here we estimate the association between (a) village income inequality and social capital, and (b) three distinct negative emotions (anger, fear, sadness) and one stress behavior (alcohol consumption). We use four quarters of panel data (2002-2003) from 655 adults in 13 villages of a foraging-farming society in the Bolivian Amazon (Tsimane'). We found that: (1) village income inequality was associated with more negative emotions but with less alcohol consumption, (2) social capital always bore a negative association with outcomes, and (3) results held up after introducing many changes to the main model. We conclude that village income inequality probably affects negative emotions and stress behaviors through other paths besides social capital because we conditioned for social capital. One such path is an innate dislike of inequality, which might have pre-human origins. Our prior research with the Tsimane' suggests that village income inequality bore an insignificant association with individual health. Therefore, village income inequality probably affects negative emotions and stress behaviors before undermining health. Keywords: Bolivia; Tsimane'; Health; Income inequality; Emotions; Social capital