Biological Measures Of Human Experience Across The Lifespan

This volume explores methods used by social scientists and human biologists to understand fundamental aspects of human experience. It is organized by stages of the human lifespan: beginnings, adulthood, and aging. Explored are particular kinds of experiences - including pain, stress, activity levels, sleep quality, memory, and menopausal hot flashes - that have traditionally relied upon self-reports, but are subject to inter-individual differences in self-awareness or culture-based expectations. The volume also examines other ways in which normally “invisible” phenomena can be made visible, such as the caloric content of foods, blood pressure, fecundity, growth, nutritional status, genotypes, and bone health. All of the chapters in this book address the means by which social scientists and human biologists measure subjective and objective experience.

Human Biological Diversity is an introductory textbook designed to cover the key contemporary topics in the study of human variation and human biology within the field of physical anthropology. Easily accessible for students with no background in anthropology or biology, this second edition includes two new chapters, one on human variation in the skeleton and dentition and the other on tracing human population affinities. All other chapters have been fully updated to reflect advances in the field and now include pedagogical features to aid readers in their understanding. Written for an introductory level but still containing valuable information that will be of interest to students on upper-level courses, Brown’s textbook should be essential reading for all students taking courses on human variation, human biology, human evolution, race, anthropology of race, and general introductions to biological/physical anthropology.

Human Growth and Development, Third Edition provides a comprehensive volume covering the biology of human growth and the genetic, endocrine, environmental, nutritional, and socio-economic factors that contribute towards its full expression. Human Growth and Development continues to be a valuable resource for researchers, professors and graduate students across the interdisciplinary area of human development. For the new edition, updates are made to all fourteen of the "core chapters" of the book which form the essential reading for a comprehensive understanding of human growth and development. Additionally, new special topics are covered including the interpretation of recently found sub-adult fossils that expand our understanding of the evolution of human growth and a discussion of the early pattern of growth and development as the developmental origins of risk for non-communicable diseases of adulthood. Human Growth and Development, Third Edition includes contributions from the well-known experts in the field and is the most reputable, comprehensive resource available. New chapters include the impact of physical activity across childhood and adolescence, information on the evolution of the human growth pattern and the contribution of epigenetics to our understanding of human growth Offers the necessary tools to connect human development data with predictive medicine Provides extensive depth on content in the form of easily digestible lecture length chapters

This book adopts a human ecology approach to present an overview of the biological responses to social, political, economic, cultural and environmental changes that affected human populations in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, since the Classic Maya Period. Human bodies express social relations, and we can read these relations by analyzing biological tissues or systems, and by measuring certain phenotypical traits at the population level. Departing from this theoretical premise, the contributors to this volume analyze the interactions between ecosystems, sociocultural systems and human biology in a specific geographic region to show how changes in sociocultural and natural environment affect the health of a population over time. This edited volume brings together contributions from a range of different scientific disciplines – such as biological anthropology, bioarchaeology, human biology, nutrition, epidemiology, ecotoxicology, political economy, sociology and ecology – that analyze the interactions between culture, environment and health in different domains of human life, such as: The political ecology of food, nutrition and health Impacts of social and economic changes in children’s diet and women’s fertility Biological consequences of social vulnerability in urban areas Impacts of toxic contamination of natural resources on human health Ecological and sociocultural determinants of infectious diseases Culture, Environment and Health in the Yucatan Peninsula – A Human Ecology Perspective will be of interest to researchers from the social, health and life sciences dedicated to the study of the interactions between natural environments, human biology, health and social issues, especially in fields such as biological and sociocultural anthropology, health promotion and environmental health. It will also be a useful tool to health professionals and public agents responsible for designing and applying public health policies in contexts of social vulnerability.

Twenty-three major databases containing historical longitudinal population data are presented and discussed in this volume, focusing on their aims, content, design, and structure. Some of these databases are based on pure longitudinal sources, such as population registers that continuously observe and record demographic events, including migration and family and household composition. Other databases are family reconstitutions, based on birth, marriage and death records. The third and last category consists of semi-longitudinal databases, that combine, for instance, civil records and censuses and/ or tax registers. The volume traces the origins of historical longitudinal databases from the 1970s and discusses their expansion worldwide, in terms of sources and hard- and software. The contributions highlight the unique genesis and common developmental arcs of these databases, which are rooted in the fields of quantitative history, social and demographic history, and the history of ordinary people. The importance of these databases in advancing knowledge and insights in various disciplines is emphasized and demonstrated, along with the challenges and opportunities they face. The collection of technical descriptions of these databases represents the most comprehensive and up-to-date overview of large database with longitudinal micro-data on historical populations. It includes descriptions of databases from Europe, North America, East-Asia, Australia, South-Africa and Suriname. Technical details, in terms of data entry, cleaning, standardization and record linkage are meticulously documented. The volume is a must-have for all scholars in the field of historical life course studies.

The relationship between a parent and a child is without any doubt one of the most influential and intimate relationships over the life course of an individual. Children resemble their parents in a variety of life outcomes such as socioeconomic status, family formation characteristics, and political views. There is growing evidence that some families – despite interventions by child protection services, judicial sanctions, and social mobility – are stuck in patterns of criminal behaviour, poverty, substance abuse, teenage parenthood, and other negative life events. This is a growing global problem for which currently no solution is available. This book brings together the most important and unique findings of intergenerational studies of criminal behaviour from around the world, and from a variety of disciplines, from criminology to sociology to anthropology. Each chapter explores the historical background of a specific study, its most important objectives, and the unique conclusions and implications that can be drawn from the data. Essential reading for all those interested in criminal behaviour, psychological criminology, and intergenerational psychology, this book provides an extensive overview of intergenerational studies on patterns of continuity and discontinuity of criminal, antisocial, or delinquent behaviour, as well as related behaviours or risk factors such as the intergenerational continuities in (harsh) parenting and family relationship quality.

This edited collection presents state-of-the-art reviews of the latest developments in multisensory packaging design. Bringing together leading researchers and practitioners working in the field, the contributions consider how our growing understanding of the human senses, as well as new technologies, will transform the way in which we design, interact with, and experience food and beverage, home and personal care, and fast-moving consumer products packaging. Spanning all of the senses from colour meaning, imagery and font, touch and sonic packaging, a new framework for multisensory packaging analysis is outlined. Including a number of case studies and examples, this book provides both practical application and theoretical discussion to appeal to students, researchers, and practitioners alike.

This handbook presents a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of gender in demography, addressing the many different influences of gender that arise from or influence demographic processes. It collects in one volume the key issues and perspectives in this area, whereby demography is broadly defined. The purpose in casting a wide net is to cover the range of work being done within demography, but at the same time to open up our perspectives to neighboring fields to encourage better conversations around these issues. The chapters in this handbook carefully document definition and measurement issues, and take up parts of the demographic picture and focus on how gender plays a role in outcomes. In other cases, gender often plays a cross-cutting role in social processes; rather than having a single or easily distinguishable role, it often combines with other social institutions and even other statuses and inequalities to affect outcomes. Thus, a key factor in this volume is how gender interacts with race/ethnicity, class, nationality, and sexuality in any demographic setting. While each section contains chapters that are broad overviews of the current state of knowledge and behavior, the handbook also includes chapters that focus on specific cultures or events in order to examine how gender operates in a particular circumstance.