College student perceptions of extrinsic mortality, economic effort, and food security during the COVID-19 pandemic:
Does economic wellbeing effort depend on levels of perceived mortality? 

We recently conducted a study with college students to determine whether perception of extrinsic mortality risk predicts self-reported effort put into maintaining long-term economic wellbeing. We also assessed impact of COVID-19 on students' experiences of adversity (i.e., mortality risk, resource availability, food insecurity, wellbeing effort).

Here are the preliminary results of this study, in which we tested 5 hypothesis regarding extrinsic mortality and long-term economic effort

Hypothesis 1: COVID will increase the perception of mortality risk and economic effort and decrease perception of resource availability.

Extrinsic mortality and economic effort significantly increased whereas perception of resource availability significantly decreased. Intriguingly, perception of intrinsic mortality risk did not change from before to during COVID.
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Hypothesis 2: Economic wellbeing effort (EWE) during COVID is inversely associated with perception of extrinsic mortality risk (PEMR) during COVID.

The result of our generalized linear model testing this hypothesis is shown in Model 1 of Table 1. Results trended in the expected direction but ultimately, we did not find support for this at p<0.05.

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Caveat for our study is that the COVID pandemic had just started and there were lockdowns in place, complicating our assessment of the effects of perceived mortality risk on economic effort. Perhaps the COVID pandemic "artificially" (i.e., for the short term) increased individuals’ perception of extrinsic mortality risk. We expect this to be the case, and that current perceptions of mortality might be unduly impacted by the pandemic. We still expect PEMR to be inversely correlated with economic effort, but only after controlling for the effect of COVID on perception of extrinsic mortality -- that is, we subtracted extrinsic mortality before COVID from the extrinsic mortality during COVID.

Hypothesis 3: EWE during COVID is inversely associated with PEMR during COVID, controlling for the effect of COVID on perception of extrinsic mortality.

The result of our generalized linear model testing this hypothesis is shown in model 4. We found strong support for this hypothesis, in that once we control for the effect of COVID on PEMR, PEMR scores during COVID become significantly associated with EWE during COVID.

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Alternatively, we could use the retrospective mortality scores and see how they associate with economic effort during COVID, under the assumption that those levels of mortality were more predictable and perhaps a better indicator of optimal economic effort.

Hypothesis 4: EWE before COVID will be inversely associated with PEMR during COVID.

​The result of our generalized linear model testing this hypothesis is shown in model 2. The hypothesis was supported, and by some measures model 2 has a better overall fit than model 4, indicating that the retrospective pre-COVID PEMR scores are a better predictor of economic effort during COVID than is PEMR scores during COVID, even after we control for the effect of COVID on PEMR. Moreover, change in PEMR (delta PEMR) does not significantly impact the relationship between PEMR before COVID and economic effort (compare Model 5 to Model 6), and when PEMR and PEMR before COVID are both in the model, only retrospective PEMR pre-COVID scores are significant (Model 3). However, it is important to note that PEMR and PEMR before COVID are highly correlated, and once we control for the impact of COVID on extrinsic mortality, as we did in model 4, PEMR during COVID is a significant predictor of economic effort.

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If pre-COVID PEMR scores predict EWE during COVID, do they also predict EWE before COVID?

Hypothesis 4: EWE before COVID will be inversely associated with PEMR before COVID.

Results trended in the expected direction but were not supported at p<0.05. One reason for this result may be that participants had difficulty recalling their actual economic effort prior to COVID.

Additional finding of interest:
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​Although not a specific hypothesis, we found that food security was significantly associated with PEMR. This finding might suggest that food insecurity (itself caused by complex political-economic and ecological factors) is a salient adverse condition that ultimately contributes to students’ perception of mortality risk or that food insecurity and extrinsic mortality are linked via a higher order construct (e.g., environmental harshness).

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Blow Them Away

BIOCULTURAL ORIGINS OF SELF-MEDICATION
Much of my research is focused on self-medication within the larger context of the human exploitation of plant secondary compounds. This project takes the perspective that humans and other herbivores evolved to exploit (or regulate exposure to) plant defensive compounds to e.g. enhance reproduction, improve cognition, or defend against infection. Some of the topics we are exploring include the adaptive nature of medical ethnobotanical knowledge, using life history theory to understand age and sex differences in self-medication behavior, and the effects of self-medication on human pathogens. Some of these areas of exploration are also central to my research on drug use (see below). 

Ethnobotany and Ethnopharmacology of Maasai Food-Medicines:  This is an ethnobotanical and ethnopharmacological study of three Maasai food-medicines or drug-foods--i.e. back tea, medicinal soup, and a psychoactive tea--as well as the medicinal plants added to them. In addition to exploring the ethnomedical knowledge and rationales for use of these medicines, we are also interested in their potential to contain antiparasitic compounds that might help modulate infections. Plans are currently underway to investigate the pharmacological antibacterial activity of Acacia Nilotica (Fabaceae), one of the plants most frequently used by the Maasai, and the most important component of the Maasai psychoactive tea.

Medical Ethnobotanical Knowledge and Health:  I am also developing a study to examine the cultural transmission of medical ethnobotanical knowledge and its relationship to health indices in traditional small-scale populations. I am particularly interested in how ethnomedical and ethnopharmacological knowledge of parents and caregivers effects developmental and health outcomes in children. This project would involve ethnographic, anthropometric, and ethnobotany methods. 

RECREATIONAL DRUG USE FROM EVOLUTIONARY & BIOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE
​Much of my research has focused on drug use within the broader evolutionary ecology perspective of plant neurotoxins. Topics central to this research include: the neurotoxin regulation model of drug use, toxin avoidance mechanisms, sex differences in drug use, the developmental origins of substance use in adolescents, human pharmacophagy, food security and substance use, substance use and extrinsic risk; substance use among hunter-gatherers, and cross-cultural patterns of drug use. 

Substance Use in Small-Scale Populations: This project uses ethnographic and biological anthropology methods to explore the ecology of tobacco and cannabis use among small-scale populations. To-date this has primarily involved research among Congo Basin foragers. We have surveyed cultural models of drug use, quantified tobacco (nicotine) and cannabis (THCA) exposure, investigated gender and age differences in drug use, explored indigenous psychoactive substances, tested the relationship between drug use (i.e. tobacco and cannabis) and intestinal parasite infections, and examined political-economic dimensions of drug use such as forager-farmer relations and the economic costs of tobacco and cannabis use. We are also using the Human Relations Area Files to further explore drug use in traditional, small-scale populations and to test hypotheses of drug use against the ethnographic record. 

Food Security, Substance Use, and Extrinsic Risk Among Economically Vulnerable Young Adults in the US: This project uses survey and interview data with college students who self-identify being either food or housing insecure to examine linkages between substance use, dietary behavior, food security, mental distress, and perceptions of environmental harshness. Examines the bi-directional association between substance use and food insecurity among economically-vulnerable and possible syndemic effects.

MAASAI COMMUNITY HEALTH PROJECT
To date this has involved a single project in northern Tanzania aimed at reducing selection pressures for antimicrobial resistance among Maasai agropastoralists (see below). Ultimately, I am interested in whether insights from evolutionary anthropology, including evolutionary psychology and cultural transmission theory, can be implemented to design more effective community health and/or innovation diffusion interventions.

Community health intervention to limit the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance among Maasai agropastoralists of northern Tanzania: Maasai pastoralists of northern Tanzania have higher rates of infection with antibiotic-resistant Escherichia coli (E. coli) than do their neighboring populations, which might be due to the improper use of veterinary antibiotics and consumption of raw cow’s milk. This project aims to disseminate 1) health knowledge about the causes of drug-resistance and the potential consequences of E. coli infections, and 2) innovations to prevent the development and transmission of drug-resistant E. coli in the Maasai and their livestock.