Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

5-2025

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Anthropology

Major Professor

Dawnie W. Steadman

Committee Members

Benjamin M. Auerbach, Kristina W. Kintziger, Susan C. Lawrence

Abstract

Epidemiological transitions illustrate changing trends in mortality over time, however, these models fail to account for heterogeneity in disease experience attributed to one’s social race, biological sex, age, or socioeconomic position. Crenshaw’s intersectionality theory conceptualizes the ways that simultaneous forms of marginalization create compounding effects of oppression. The second epidemiological transition was proposed by Omran (1971) and detailed a transition from acute, infectious mortality to chronic, non-communicable mortality in Europe and North America that coincided with the Industrial Revolution while the third epidemiological transition is

characterized by the emergence and re-emergence of infectious disease and the fourth epidemiological transition focuses on the distributions of non-communicable mortality among the elderly. Skeletal collections consisting of known individuals dating to the time periods in question provide opportunities to interrogate the presence and timing of these transitions, particularly from the perspective of the lowest social positions. The purpose of this study is to assess the effects of intersectional forms of marginalization on the trajectory of the second, third, and fourth epidemiological transitions in a sample of skeletal remains. The study samples for this project come from the Stanford Osteological Collection and the UTK Donated Skeletal Collection. A biocultural approach that integrates human skeletal evidence with the wider social and historical context will highlight the heterogeneity in how individuals experienced these transitions. It was hypothesized that there would be heterogeneity in cause of death within the samples based on intersectional identity and that the mortality patterns in the sample would differ when compared to population-level data. Results found that in the Stanford sample, Asian and Italian males who worked as laborers continued to be plagued by higher rates of tuberculosis and other respiratory infections compared to the rest of the sample who primarily were burdened by heart disease. In the UTK collection, cancer deaths were overrepresented among the white individuals within the collection while heart or cardiovascular deaths were overrepresented among the non-white sample. The results highlight a persistent pattern where the poor and marginalized continue to be disproportionately impacted by ill health outcomes and not benefit equally from large-scale epidemiological improvements.

Download

Available for download on Thursday, May 15, 2031

Files over 3MB may be slow to open. For best results, right-click and select "save as..."

Share

COinS