The biological standard of living in 19th century Mexico and in the American West

During the mid-19th century, the United States acquired Texas and large parts of Mexican territory with the vast Mexican-born population. This paper considers the biological standard of living of the part of this population that was incarcerated in American prisons. We use their physical stature as a proxy for their biological welfare. These data confirm earlier results which showed that adult heights tended to stagnate in Mexico during the late-19th century despite considerable social and political turmoil. While there is some evidence of a decline in height among youth, the decline is slight (<1 cm). As in other 19th century samples, farmers were the tallest. Americans were taller than Mexican prisoners by about 2 cm.     

The making of giants in a welfare state: the Norwegian experience in the 20th century

The population of Norway has become one of the tallest in the world even overtaking Americans during the course of the second half of the 20th century-not in terms of income, but in terms of physical stature and other indicators of biological welfare, such as longevity. This is also the case in several other west-European welfare states. Both income and physical stature have converged across Norwegian counties since the 1930s. We formulate the hypothesis that the west-European and Scandinavian welfare states perform well in mitigating spatial inequality in well being, in the sense that they translate income quite effectively into the biological well being of the population as a whole.     

Observations on the history of Dutch physical stature from the late-Middle Ages to the present

In the late-Middle Ages and at the onset of the early modern period, the Dutch population was taller than in the first half of the 19th century. This inference is partially based on skeletal evidence, mainly collected by the Dutch physical anthropologist George Maat and his co-workers. A spectacular increase in Dutch heights began in the second half of the 19th century and accelerated in the second half of the 20th century. At the end of the 20th century, the Dutch became tallest in the world.     

The trend of BMI values of US adults by deciles, birth cohorts 1882–1986 stratified by gender and ethnicity

We estimate trends in BMI values by deciles of the US adult population by birth cohorts 1882–1986 stratified by ethnicity and gender. The highest decile increased by some 18–22 BMI units in the course of the century while the lowest ones increased by merely 1–3 BMI units. For example, a typical African American woman in the 10th percentile and 64 in. (162.6 cm) tall increased in weight by just 12 pounds (5 kg) whereas in the 90th percentile her weight would have increased by 128 pounds (58 kg). Hence, the BMI distribution became increasingly right skewed as the distance between the deciles increased considerably. The rate of change of the BMI decile curves varied greatly over time and across gender and ethnicity. The BMI deciles of white men and women experienced upswings after the two world wars and downswings during the Great Depression and also decelerated after 1970. However, among African Americans the pattern is different during the first half of the century with men's rate of increase in BMI values decreasing substantially and that of females remaining constant at a relatively high level until the Second World War. After the war, though, the rate of change of BMI values of blacks came to resemble that of whites with an accelerating phase followed by a slowdown around the 1970s.     

Patterns of demographic change in the Americas.

Considerable scholarly debate has focused on the nature of demographic change in the Americas before and after 1492. Recent research on human skeletal samples and related archeological materials suggests that morbidity and mortality were increasing throughout much of the Western Hemisphere before 1492 in response to increased population density, increased sedentism, and changing subsistence. The evidence suggests that after 1492 population reduction was caused not by continental pandemics but by localized or regional epidemics augmented by social and economic disruption. The twentieth century has witnessed remarkable Native American population recovery, fueled both by improvements in health care and changing definitions of "being Indian."     

Improvement of health care for the poor in Split (southern Croatia) during the first half of the 19th century

The aim of this study was to investigate the health care available for the poor citizens of Split during the first half of the 19th century. Soon after being constructed in 1797, the Civic Hospital in Split founded by the Ergovac brothers for the needs of the poor was transformed into a military hospital. Consequently, caring for this social stratum was taken over by two inadequate shelters and later by a small civic hospital situated in the Split suburb of Dobri. The year of the application of Petar Ergovac to the supreme ruler for the transformation of the hospital building established by his family from a military to a civil institution was found, as well as the correct data regarding its return to initial idea in 1821. On the basis of the archival documents kept in the Archaeological Museum in Split and in the State Archives in Zadar, the work organization of the Civic Hospital in Split and the first stage of its change from a charitable to a public health hospital institution were presented. This study revealed the aspiration of the authorities in the first half of the 19th century to improve the health system of the city of Split.     

The cholera epidemics and the development of public health in Meiji Japan. 1. Modernity, cholera, and health thought

We present here the beginnings of public health politics in Meiji Japan (1868-1912). Due to a two century isolation of Japan, public health concepts developed in the West from the end of the 18th century were foreign in premodern Japan. Due to its isolation, Japan was also relatively preserved from some acute infectious diseases such as cholera. In this paper, we investigate the role of cholera epidemics in the emergence of public health concepts in the peculiar context of Meiji Japan. We show that chronic diseases such as tuberculosis and leprosy were neglected for a long time and that the Meiji government set priority on acute infectious diseases that were considered as long as they disturbed public order. Nevertheless, some physicians and government officials considered issues of welfare and poverty. We also review some emerging concepts of social medicine. We try to show, that in Japan as well as in Western nations, public health politics were not exempt of contradictions and paradoxes and a permanent tension existed between coercitive policies and conceptions of welfare and rights to health.     

Who's afraid of the boss: cultural differences in social hierarchies modulate self-face recognition in Chinese and Americans

Human adults typically respond faster to their own face than to the faces of others. However, in Chinese participants, this self-face advantage is lost in the presence of one's supervisor, and they respond faster to their supervisor's face than to their own. While this "boss effect" suggests a strong modulation of self-processing in the presence of influential social superiors, the current study examined whether this effect was true across cultures. Given the wealth of literature on cultural differences between collectivist, interdependent versus individualistic, independent self-construals, we hypothesized that the boss effect might be weaker in independent than interdependent cultures. Twenty European American college students were asked to identify orientations of their own face or their supervisors' face. We found that European Americans, unlike Chinese participants, did not show a "boss effect" and maintained the self-face advantage even in the presence of their supervisor's face. Interestingly, however, their self-face advantage decreased as their ratings of their boss's perceived social status increased, suggesting that self-processing in Americans is influenced more by one's social status than by one's hierarchical position as a social superior. In addition, when their boss's face was presented with a labmate's face, American participants responded faster to the boss's face, indicating that the boss may represent general social dominance rather than a direct negative threat to oneself, in more independent cultures. Altogether, these results demonstrate a strong cultural modulation of self-processing in social contexts and suggest that the very concept of social positions, such as a boss, may hold markedly different meanings to the self across Western and East Asian cultures.     

Comparison of the increase in body size between 1899 and 1970 in a specially selected group with that in the general population

Height and weight data for varsity football players from 1899 to 1970 were analyzed for evidence of a secular trend in such a specialized sample. Recent football teams ('61–'70) are, on the average, 2.6 inches (6.6 cm) taller and 35.3 pounds (16.05 kg) heavier than the teams at the turn of the century (1899–1910). The estimated trend over the 70 year span was 0.37 inches (0.94 cm) per decade for stature and 5.04 pounds (2.29 kg) per decade for weight. Unfortunately, it is not possible to partition these trends and obtain separate estimates for the “secular” effects and for those effects that might be attributed to “recruiting practices.” The observed trend for stature in football players corresponds with the upper limit of the estimated range for adult secular trend data for stature from Western European countries, and is greater than that reported for American young adult males both in college and in the general population.     

Mexican Americans as a paradigm for contemporary intra-group heterogeneity

Abstract

Racialization and assimilation offer alternative perspectives on the position of immigrant-origin populations in American society. We question the adequacy of either perspective alone in the early twenty-first century, taking Mexican Americans as our case in point. Re-analysing the child sample of the Mexican American Study Project, we uncover substantial heterogeneity marked by vulnerability to racialization at one end but proximity to the mainstream at the other. This heterogeneity reflects important variations in how education, intermarriage, mixed ancestry and geographic mobility have intersected for Mexican immigrants and their descendants over the twentieth century, and in turn shaped their ethnic identity. Finally, based on US census findings, we give reason to think that internal heterogeneity is increasing in the twenty-first century. Together, these findings suggest that future studies of immigrant adaptation in America must do a better job of accounting for heterogeneity, not just between but also within immigrant-origin populations.     

我国特有植物银杉的资源、分布及其环境

我国银杉自1955年发现以来,陆续发现了它的新分布,至今已知在四省、区7个分布区的30多个分布点上,自然生长着银杉3200余株。它们是:广西花坪林区(越城岭南部)6个点有银杉1040抹,其中高5米以上的68株,1～5米的49株,1米以下的923株,最高21.1米,最大胸径83厘米;广西大瑶山4个点有银杉143株,其中高10米以上的94株,1～3米的3株,1米以下的46株,最高30米,最大胸径79.2厘米;湖南罗汉洞(越城岭北部)2个点有银杉58株,5米以上的有45株,最高18米,最大胸径43厘米;湖南罗霄山脉八面山有银杉707株,高1米以上的334株,最高24米,最大胸径46厘米;四川南川金佛山(大娄山东段北部)6个点有银杉527株,其中成年树400余株,最高17米,最大胸径50厘米;百枝山有银杉52株,最高8米,最大胸径27厘米;贵州道真沙河林区(大娄山东段南部)3处12个点有银杉729株,其中高5米以上的105株,2～5米的209株,1～2米的111株,1米以下的304株,最高18.8米,最大胸径48厘米;贵州桐梓白菁有银杉10株,高4～5米的2株,1～3米的6株,1米以下的2株。 银杉分布区范围自北纬24°5′～29°13′14″,东经107°10′～113°40′。其垂直分布自海拔940～1840米,金佛山银杉分布最高,为1600～1840米;罗汉洞银杉分布最低,为940～1060米。分布区内,年均温8.2°～17℃,绝对最低温     

Characterizing the admixed African ancestry of African Americans

Background

Accurate, high-throughput genotyping allows the fine characterization of genetic ancestry. Here we applied recently developed statistical and computational techniques to the question of African ancestry in African Americans by using data on more than 450,000 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) genotyped in 94 Africans of diverse geographic origins included in the HGDP, as well as 136 African Americans and 38 European Americans participating in the Atherosclerotic Disease Vascular Function and Genetic Epidemiology (ADVANCE) study. To focus on African ancestry, we reduced the data to include only those genotypes in each African American determined statistically to be African in origin.

Results

From cluster analysis, we found that all the African Americans are admixed in their African components of ancestry, with the majority contributions being from West and West-Central Africa, and only modest variation in these African-ancestry proportions among individuals. Furthermore, by principal components analysis, we found little evidence of genetic structure within the African component of ancestry in African Americans.

Conclusions

These results are consistent with historic mating patterns among African Americans that are largely uncorrelated to African ancestral origins, and they cast doubt on the general utility of mtDNA or Y-chromosome markers alone to delineate the full African ancestry of African Americans. Our results also indicate that the genetic architecture of African Americans is distinct from that of Africans, and that the greatest source of potential genetic stratification bias in case-control studies of African Americans derives from the proportion of European ancestry.     

Impact of Breast Cancer on Asian American and Anglo American Women

This pilot study constitutes the first exploration ofthe impact of breast cancer on Asian American women.Three hypotheses guided this study: (1) Asian Americanwomen would choose breast conserving therapy andbreast reconstruction at a lower rate than the AngloAmerican women due to cultural differences in bodyimage, (2) Asian American women with breast cancerwould express psychological distress somatically andAnglo American women would express distress emotionally, and acculturation levels of the AsianAmerican women would modify the expressions ofdistress such that women with high acculturation willexpress distress more emotionally and lessacculturated women would express distress moresomatically, and (3) Asian American women would seekassistance for psychosocial problems at asignificantly lower rate than Anglo women. Ethnicity,age, and levels of acculturation were found to besignificant variables that had to be consideredsimultaneously. The three hypotheses were onlypartially supported: (1) Asian American women chosebreast conserving therapy and adjuvant therapy at asignificantly lower rate than the Anglo Americanwomen, (2) Contrary to the hypothesis, somatization didnot appear to be a dominant form of symptompresentation for Asian American women regardless oflevel of acculturation, and (3) Asian American womensought professional assistance for psychosocialproblems at a significantly lower rate than Anglowomen. Asian American women reported using differentmodes of help-seeking behavior for emotional concernsand receiving different sources of social support thanthe Anglo American women. Cultural interpretations ofthe findings are offered to explain the differences inthe physical, emotional, and social responses to thebreast cancer experience of Asian American womencompared with the Anglo Americans, and notably betweenthe Chinese- and Japanese Americans as well. Thefindings of this study warrant more refinedexploration in order to improve the medical,psychological and social outcomes for Asian Americanwomen with breast cancer.     

Human T-lymphotropic virus type I seroprevalence among Japanese Americans.

The epidemiology of human T-lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) infection is not well defined in Japanese Americans. This impairs using approaches that could reduce viral transmission and monitor carriers for the disease. Using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and p21e recombinant Western blot testing, HTLV-I antibody was measured in unlinked samples from Japanese-American patients at 4 physicians'' offices in San Francisco, California. Of 442 patients, 4 (0.9%; 95% confidence interval 0.25%, 2.3%) were confirmed seropositive, all with an HTLV-I rather than an HTLV-II pattern on Western blot. Seroprevalence was highest among the issei or immigrant generation (3/230 or 1.3%) compared with the second-generation nisei (1/191 or 0.5%) or third-generation sansei (0 of 17). Prevalence did not differ by age or sex, although the number of positive subjects in each subgroup was small. Of 88 patients with familial origins in endemic areas of southern Japan, none were seropositive. In this sample of Japanese Americans, HTLV-I seroprevalence was lower than in residents of endemic southern Japan but higher than among American blood donors. The prevalence was most similar to that in nonendemic areas of Japan. The public health implications of HTLV-I infection among Japanese Americans are discussed.     

Role of BMI-associated loci identified in GWAS meta-analyses in the context of common childhood obesity in European Americans

Obesity is a serious health concern for children and adolescents, particularly in Western societies, where its incidence is now considered to have reached epidemic proportions. A number of genetic determinants of adult BMI have already been established through genome wide association studies (GWAS), most recently from the GIANT meta-analysis of such datasets combined. In this current study of European Americans, we examined the 32 loci detected in that GIANT study in the context of common childhood obesity within a cohort of 1,097 cases (defined as BMI ≥95th percentile), together with 2,760 lean controls (defined as BMI <50th percentile), aged between 2 and 18 years old. Nine of these single-nucleotide polymorphims (SNPs) yielded at least nominal evidence for association with common childhood obesity, namely at the FTO, TMEM18, NRXN3, MC4R, SEC16B, GNPDA2, TNNI3K, QPCTL, and BDNF loci. However, overall 28 of the 32 loci showed directionally consistent effects to that of the adult BMI meta-analysis. We conclude that among the 32 loci that have been reported to associate with adult BMI in the largest meta-analysis of BMI to date, at least nine also contribute to the determination of common obesity in childhood in European Americans, as demonstrated by their associations in our pediatric cohort.     

Transcultural Psychiatry: Cultural Difference,Universalism and Social Psychiatry in the Age of Decolonisation

In the mid-twentieth century, in the aftermath of WWII and the Nazi atrocities and in the midst of decolonisation, a new discipline of transcultural psychiatry was being established and institutionalised. This was part and parcel of a global political project in the course of which Western psychiatry attempted to leave behind its colonial legacies and entanglements, and lay the foundation for a more inclusive, egalitarian communication between Western and non-Western concepts of mental illness and healing. In this period, the infrastructure of post-colonial global and transcultural psychiatry was set up, and leading psychiatric figures across the world embarked on identifying, debating and sometimes critiquing the universal psychological characteristics and psychopathological mechanisms supposedly shared among all cultures and civilisations. The article will explore how this psychiatric, social and cultural search for a new definition of ‘common humanity’ was influenced and shaped by the concurrent global rise of social psychiatry. In the early phases of transcultural psychiatry, a large number of psychiatrists were very keen to determine how cultural and social environments shaped the basic traits of human psychology, and ‘psy’ practitioners and anthropologist from all over the world sought to re-define the relationship between culture, race and individual psyche. Most of them worked within the universalist framework, which posited that cultural differences merely formed a veneer of symptoms and expressions while the universal core of mental illness remained the same across all cultures. The article will argue that, even in this context, which explicitly challenged the hierarchical and racist paradigms of colonial psychiatry, the founding generations of transcultural psychiatrists from Western Europe and North America tended to conceive of broader environmental determinants of mental health and pathology in the decolonising world in fairly reductionist terms—focusing almost exclusively on ‘cultural difference’ and cultural, racial and ethnic ‘traditions’, essentialising and reifying them in the process, and failing to establish some common sociological or economic categories of analysis of Western and non-Western ‘mentalities’. On the other hand, it was African and Asian psychiatrists as well as Marxist psychiatrists from Eastern Europe who insisted on applying those broader social psychiatry concepts—such as social class, occupation, socio-economic change, political and group pressures and relations etc.—which were quickly becoming central to mental health research in the West but were largely missing from Western psychiatrists’ engagement with the decolonising world. In this way, some of the leading non-Western psychiatrists relied on social psychiatry to establish the limits of psychiatric universalism, and challenge some of its Eurocentric and essentialising tendencies. Even though they still subscribed to the predominant universalist framework, these practitioners invoked social psychiatry to draw attention to universalism’s internal incoherence, and sought to revise the lingering evolutionary thinking in transcultural psychiatry. They also contributed to re-imagining cross-cultural encounters and exchanges as potentially creative and progressive (whereas early Western transcultural psychiatry primarily viewed the cross-cultural through the prism of pathogenic and traumatic ‘cultural clash’). Therefore, the article will explore the complex politics of the shifting and overlapping definitions of ‘social’ and ‘cultural’ factors in mid-twentieth century transcultural psychiatry, and aims to recover the revolutionary voices of non-Western psychiatrists and their contributions to the global re-drawing of the boundaries of humanity in the second half of the twentieth century.

     

Self-reported comorbidities among self-described overweight African-American and Hispanic adults in the United States: results of a national survey

Objective: To examine the concordance between self‐described weight status and BMI, the prevalence of self‐reported comorbidities, and the association between comorbidities and self‐rated health among overweight African‐American and Hispanic US adults. Methods and Procedures: A nationally representative sample of 537 African‐American and 526 Hispanic adults who were identified using a combination of random digit dialing and listed household sampling and self‐described as being slightly or very overweight participated in a telephone interview. Self‐reported height and weight were used to calculate BMI. Results: More than half of African Americans (56%) and one‐third of Hispanics (34%) who self‐described as “slightly” overweight would be classified as obese based on BMI. One‐third (33%) of African Americans reported high blood pressure, followed by arthritis (20%), high cholesterol (18%), and diabetes (15%). Among Hispanics, high cholesterol was the most frequently reported comorbidity (17%), followed by high blood pressure (15%), and difficulty sleeping (12%). Almost three‐quarters of African Americans surveyed (72%) reported that their overall health was good to excellent compared to 62% for Hispanics. Discussion: Self‐reported rates of obesity‐related comorbidities fall below what would be expected based on prevalence data derived from physiologic measures, suggesting a lack of awareness of actual risk. Despite the greater self‐reported prevalence of certain risk factors for poor health, African Americans have a more optimistic view of their overall health and weight status compared to Hispanics. Physicians have an important opportunity to communicate to their minority patients the serious health consequences associated with excess weight.     

Colonial to modern skeletal change in the U.S.A.

Eighty-two people dating from 1675 to 1879 compared with 182 modern middle-class White and Black skeletons test the myths of radical changes produced by improved diet, less disease, and nineteenth century immigration. Longevity increases and health and growth improvement is clearest in reduced juvenile deaths (census data) and deepening of true pelvis. Stature increase is minimal (though seventeenth century Londoners and modern West Africans are shorter than Colonial to Modern Americans); teeth deteriorate and for cultural reasons fractures increase. Clavicles and forearms elongate. From Old to New World Colonial samples there is a noticeable skull change (and a greater Old World to Modern contrast) but White Colonial to Modern shows strong continuity surprisingly, the key changes being increasing head height, and retraction of face with increasing nose projection, and longer mastoids, resulting from selection and mixture. Blacks change more, possibly from Indian and White mixture. Variabilities are above average. Change is much less than expected, and apparently involves heterosis and selection as well as the obvious health advance and mixtures.     

The cranial morphology of the Botocudo Indians,Brazil

The Botocudo Indians were hunter‐gatherer groups that occupied the East‐Central regions of Brazil decimated during the colonial period in the country. During the 19th century, craniometric studies suggested that the Botocudo resembled more the Paleoamerican population of Lagoa Santa than typical Native Americans groups. These results suggest that the Botocudo Indians might represent a population that retained the biological characteristics of early groups of the continent, remaining largely isolated from groups that gave origin to the modern Native South American variation. Moreover, recently, some of the Botocudo remains have been shown to have mitochondrial and autosomal DNA lineages currently found in Polynesian populations. Here, we explore the morphological affinities of Botocudo skulls within a worldwide context. Distinct multivariate analyses based on 32 craniometric variables show that 1) the two individuals with Polynesian DNA sequences have morphological characteristics that fall within the Polynesian and Botocudo variation, making their assignation as Native American specimens problematic, and 2) there are high morphological affinities between Botocudo, Early Americans, and the Polynesian series of Easter Island, which support the early observations that the Botocudo can be seen as retaining the Paleoamerican morphology, particularly when the neurocranium is considered. Although these results do not elucidate the origin of the Polynesian DNA lineages among the Botocudo, they support the hypothesis that the Botocudo represent a case of late survival of ancient Paleoamerican populations, retaining the morphological characteristics of ancestral Late Pleistocene populations from Asia. Am J Phys Anthropol 157:202–216, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Temporal trends in femoral diaphyseal torsional asymmetry among the Arikara associated with postural behavior

Average femoral torsion has been reported to differ among populations, and several studies have observed a relatively high prevalence of femoral anteversion asymmetry in Native Americans, especially females. This study investigates sexual dimorphism and temporal trends in femoral torsional asymmetry among the Arikara from the seventeenth to the early nineteenth century. To establish if there are population differences, femoral torsion was first measured using a direct method on a diverse comparative sample of Native Americans from the Southwest, Midwest, and Great Plains as well as American Whites and Blacks. To examine temporal trends among the Arikara, femoral torsion was examined using the orientation of the maximum bending rigidity at subtrochanteric in 154 females and 164 males from three temporal variants of the Arikara Coalescent tradition. There is significant sexual dimorphism in femoral torsional directional and absolute asymmetry among most Native American samples, but not among American Whites and Blacks. Among the Arikara there is significant sexual dimorphism in femoral torsional asymmetry in all three temporal variants, and asymmetry in femoral torsional asymmetry increased significantly from the protohistoric to the early historic period among females. The increased femoral torsional asymmetry is likely associated with a common side‐sitting posture observed in historic photographs of Great Plains females. Historic Arikara females may have habitually sat in this compulsory position for extended periods while conducting domestic chores. The dramatic change from the protohistoric to historic period suggests a cultural change in sitting posture among females that was widespread across the Northern Plains. Am J Phys Anthropol 154:512–524, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.