| NSF Org: |
BCS Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | August 23, 2019 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | October 2, 2020 |
| Award Number: | 1918769 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Rebecca Ferrell
rferrell@nsf.gov (703)292-7850 BCS Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences SBE Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences |
| Start Date: | September 1, 2019 |
| End Date: | August 31, 2021 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $23,064.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $23,064.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
150 MUNSON ST NEW HAVEN CT US 06511-3572 (203)785-4689 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
10 Sachem Street New Haven CT US 06511-8939 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | Bio Anthro DDRI |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.075 |
ABSTRACT
This doctoral research project examines how trauma experienced by women may be transmitted across generations, affecting their well-being and the well-being of their children. Working with populations who have endured high-stress environments, the investigators will conduct in-depth interviews with women when they are pregnant and subsequently measure markers of stress in those women and their infants, to understand how trauma affects women and children socially, emotionally, and biologically. Through these bio-ethnographic methods, the project will advance our understanding of epigenetic responses to the environment in humans. The project will also contribute to graduate training and mentoring and may inform public health research and behavioral health interventions.
This project considers how biosocial inheritance, or the means by which social adversity or advantage is transmitted across generations, may play a role in intergenerational trauma. Specifically, this project considers (1) how women enduring adverse environments subjectively construct their traumatic experience; (2) whether maternal trauma may be "molecularized" at the level of the epigenome; (3) whether maternal traumatic experience is associated with neuroendocrine stress during pregnancy; and (4) whether maternal epigenetic or neuroendocrine signals correspond to those seen in offspring in early life. In this study of 112 mother-infant dyads, mothers' subjective appraisals of trauma will be elicited through semi-structured and life history interviews, which will be used to contextualize their responses to a survey of traumatic exposure and a trauma symptoms checklist. Their biological incorporation of trauma will be assessed with measures of DNA methylation and hair cortisol concentration. Methylation will be measured at five genes that are involved in the neuroendocrine stress response: NR3C1, FKBP5, BDNF, SLC6A4, and MAOA. To evaluate for broader patterns of epigenetic modification, epigenome-wide methylation analyses will also be conducted. To investigate the potential for intergenerational programming, this project will measure chronic cortisol secretion in mothers, cortisol reactivity following a modest stressor in infants at eight weeks of age, and DNA methylation at these five stress-related loci in both mothers and infants.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
This research evaluated the experience of Latina migrant mothers living in New Haven, Connecticut amid the COVID-19 pandemic. I asked: How do Latin American migrant women accommodate traumatic histories and motherhood amid the COVID-19 pandemic? My ethnography demonstrates the powerful ways women cope with histories of trauma and ongoing adversity. Using the metaphor of the monarch butterfly, I consider processes of migration from Latin America and adjustment to life in the U.S., motherhood including the sacrifices women make for the betterment of their children, and metamorphosis, or transformations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing structural vulnerability. Using person-centered ethnography, oral history, and archival data, I consider women's experiences within their political, social, historical, and cultural contexts.
First, I re-evaluate the demographic category of “Latinx,” consider patterns of migration from Latin America to New Haven, examine relationships between the Black and Latinx communities of New Haven, and trace movements of collective organizing for empowerment of the New Haven Latinx community.
Second, I narrate the lives of migrant mothers, attending to their experiences of state failure in Latin America, ongoing structural violence in the U.S., and adaptation, focusing on the ways women orient themselves toward the futures of their children. I coin the terms “strategic coupling” to characterize the ways women engage in romantic and legal relationships with men to access social, political, and financial capital; “imperative resilience” to describe cognitive and social strategies of survival and resistance to oppressive regimes; and “intergenerational fortitude” to refer to the ways women harness the wisdom, experience, and values of their maternal forbearers to better support their children.
Finally, I discuss the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on migrant populations, expose the racism Latina mothers experience during pregnancy and birth and the ways they are excluded from services for which they are eligible when seeking healcare, and discuss policy solutions to mitigate the harms of structural vulnerability for Latin American migrant mothers.
Through this engaged and ethnographic work, I aim to promote structural competency for scholars and clinicians and advance health equity for migrant communities.
Last Modified: 08/31/2021
Modified by: Jessica P Cerdena
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