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66
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Introduction
I am a Human Behavioural Ecologist, broadly defined as an evolutionary social scientist interested in how the social and physical environment (or ecology) influences human development and behaviour. My academic interests focus on extended and institutional child-rearing systems (such as parenting, grand-parenting, schooling and social care provisions) and its implications for health and wellbeing (including health-related behaviours). I have research experience working in academia, charities and the public sector, as well as teaching research methods and human behavioural ecology at university. I am a mixed method researcher with specialism in complex data analysis - such as surveys, censuses and cohort studies.
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Publications
Publications (66)
Background
Breastfeeding rates in the UK have remained stubbornly low despite long-term intervention efforts. Social support is a key, theoretically grounded intervention method, yet social support has been inconsistently related to improved breastfeeding. Understanding of the dynamics between infant feeding and social support is currently limited...
In the UK, girls are consistently found to have lower subjective well-being and higher rates of anxiety disorders/depression compared to boys. While the reasons for these gender disparities are complex, how girls conceptualize, experience, and “perform” femininity may be one pathway which exacerbates psychological stress. To explore this hypothesis...
Understanding human behaviour requires simultaneous consideration of “nature and nurture”, yet biocultural enquiry within anthropology remains uncommon. In part, this may stem from historical divisions the between sub-disciplines of anthropology where biological anthropology has specialised in quantitative methods and socio-cultural anthropology in...
Dads and partners are one of the most important supporters for mum and baby. What you do during the early weeks -even the simple actions- can really help your partner reach their breastfeeding goals. Take a look at this leaflet for tips to support breastfeeding.
Adolescence is identified as a key period for identity development, but anthropological literature hints to cross-cultural variations. Past research suggests Japanese adolescents may experience more identity exploration/confusion compared to Western counterparts, but the reasons behind these findings remain unclear. This study investigates how adol...
Evolutionary anthropologists argue that allomothering is crucial for successful childrearing in humans. Using survey data from postpartum mothers in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic (approx. N=250), we exploit the “natural experiment” conditions of lockdown to test the hypothesis that allomothering has direct and indirect effects on child develo...
Adolescence is an expansive, dynamic period in the life course covering a broad age range (ages 10-24) and a cascade of biological and cultural changes. However, biocultural approaches to adolescence have been less well developed within existing research compared to child and adult counterparts. In this article, we advance a roadmap to revisit rece...
Breastfeeding rates in the UK have remained stubbornly low despite long-term intervention efforts. Social support is a key, theoretically grounded intervention target in both cases, yet they have a weak evidence base. Understanding of the dynamics between infant feeding, maternal wellbeing and social support is currently limited by retrospective co...
Nausea and vomiting in pregnancy (NVP) have been proposed to have a prophylactic function. In this review, I re-examine NVP from an evolutionary perspective in light of new research on NVP. First, current evidence suggests that the observed characteristics of NVP does not align well with a prophylactic function. Further, NVP is typically associated...
Background: In the UK, girls are consistently found to have lower subjective well-being and higher rates of anxiety disorders/depression compared to boys. While the reasons for these gender disparities are likely complex, concepts of femininity and its associated performance may act as a potential stressor for girls. Aims: We conducted an in-depth...
Nausea and vomiting in pregnancy (NVP) has been proposed to have a prophylactic function. In this commentary, I re-examine NVP from an evolutionary perspective in light of new research on NVP. First, current evidence suggests that the observed characteristics of NVP does not align well with a prophylactic function. Further, NVP is typically associa...
Alloparenting, wherein people provide care to children who are not their biological offspring, is a key aspect of human child-rearing. In the Pacific, many children are adopted or fostered by custodial alloparents even when both biological parents are still alive. From a behavioral ecology perspective, such behaviors are puzzling: why parent someon...
Teaching is an important mechanism of social learning. In industrialized societies, 3-year-olds tend to teach through demonstrations and short commands, while 5-year-olds use more verbal communication and abstract explanations. However, it remains unclear whether this generalizes to other cultures. This study presents results from a peer teaching g...
Aims
This study examines the impact of COVID-19 lockdown on postpartum mothers in England, with the aim of identifying opportunities to improve maternal experience and wellbeing. The postpartum/postnatal period is widely acknowledged as a time when mothers require greater levels of support from multiple sources. However, stay-at-home orders, common...
Background
Shorter breastfeeding duration is associated with detrimental consequences for infant health/development and maternal health. Previous studies suggest social support is essential in maintaining breast/chest-feeding and helping to improve general infant feeding experiences. Public health bodies therefore work to support breastfeeding in t...
Breastfeeding is championed as an effective way to improve global health, associated with improved health outcomes for children and mothers. Various public health strategies to promote breastfeeding have been developed and implemented for over four decades, yet progress has stagnated, and exclusive breastfeeding rates remain low globally. From an e...
Breastfeeding is championed as an effective way to improve global health, associated with improved health outcomes for children and mothers. Various public health strategies to promote breastfeeding have been developed and implemented for over four decades, yet progress has stagnated, and exclusive breastfeeding rates remain low globally. From an e...
Background: Social support in all forms is essential in maintaining breast/chest-feeding and helping to improve general infant feeding experience among parents. With breastfeeding durations notably short in the UK, the question of the effectiveness and quality of support for infant feeding comes to the fore. Current literature suggests that togethe...
The postpartum/postnatal period is a time where mothers require greater levels of support from multiple formal and informal sources. However, stay-at-home orders commonly known as “lockdown” deployed in some countries to limit COVID-19 transmission likely led to reduced availability of support, which may have implications for maternal wellbeing. In...
Our world may be home to many different cultures, but no matter where we are raised, the time we spend transitioning from children into adults is one of the most important stages of our lives. Dr Emily Emmott at University College London in the UK and Dr Masahito Morita at the University of Tokyo in Japan are looking at what is important to teenage...
Background
Postnatal depression (PND) is highly detrimental for both mother and baby, with a pre-COVID-19 estimated prevalence of up to 23% in Europe. Low social support is a key risk factor for developing PND. Social distancing measures designed to limit COVID-19 transmission likely created unprecedented barriers for mothers to access social suppo...
Mounting evidence indicates the mental health of postnatal mothers suffered during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a four-wave online survey of United Kingdom mothers we explore the continuing trajectory of postnatal depressive symptoms. During the first lockdown 47.5% of mothers (n=162) met the ≥11 Edinburgh Postnatal Depression S...
Objectives
Physical breastfeeding problems can lead women to terminate breastfeeding earlier than planned. In high-income countries such as the UK, breastfeeding problems have been attributed to the cultural and individual “inexperience” of breastfeeding, ultimately leading to lower breastfeeding rates. Yet, cross-cultural evidence suggests breastf...
Postnatal/postpartum depression (PND/PPD) had a pre-COVID-19 estimated prevalence ranging up to 23% in Europe, 33% in Australia, and 64% in America, and is detrimental to both mothers and their infants. Low social support is a key risk factor for developing PND. From an evolutionary perspective this is perhaps unsurprising, as humans evolved as coo...
It has long been acknowledged that women with children require social support to promote their health and wellbeing, as well as that of their children. However, the dominant conceptualizations of support have been heavily influenced by Western family norms. The consequence, at best, has been to stifle our understanding of the nature and consequence...
Social support is a known determinant of breastfeeding behaviour and is generally considered beneficial. However, social support encompasses a myriad of different supportive acts, providing scope for diverse infant feeding outcomes. Given the vulnerability of postpartum mental health, this paper aims to explore both how support prolongs breastfeedi...
Non-maternal carers (allomothers) are hypothesized to lighten the mother's workload, allowing for the specialized human life history including relatively short interbirth intervals and multiple dependent offspring. Here, using in-depth observational data on childcare provided to 78 Agta children (a foraging population in the northern Philippines; a...
Want to know learn about adolescence from an evolutionary anthropological perspective? This introductory 1 hr lecture outlines how we understand and investigate adolescence as evolutionary anthropologists. This lecture was produced for undergraduate students at the University of Cambridge.
You can watch the 1hr lecture at: https://mediacentral.ucl...
Background: Globally, women are at greater risk of common mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety, and physiological differences relating to reproductive hormones have been suggested as one cause. Recent evidence suggests that oral contraceptives alter female hormonal responses, potentially increasing the risk of mental ill health. H...
Many women going through the menopausal transition experience vasomotor symptoms (VMS), and research has shown that there is a large amount of variation in their frequency and severity. Many lifestyle factors have been found to co-vary with VMS, including the level of social support received by the woman, and how stressed she is. Stress is well doc...
Postnatal/postpartum depression (PND/PPD) had a pre-covid estimated prevalence ranging up to 23% in Europe, 33% in Australia, and 64% in America, and is detrimental to both mothers and their infants. Low social support is a key risk factor for developing PND. From an evolutionary perspective this is perhaps unsurprising, as humans evolved as cooper...
Social support is a known determinant of breastfeeding behaviour and is generally considered beneficial. However, social support encompasses a myriad of different supportive acts, providing scope for diverse consequences. Given the vulnerability of postpartum mental health, it is crucial to understand not only how support prolongs breastfeeding, bu...
Objectives: Physical breastfeeding problems can lead women to terminate breastfeeding earlier than planned. In high-income countries, breastfeeding problems have been attributed to the cultural and individual “inexperience” of breastfeeding, ultimately leading to lower breastfeeding rates. Yet, cross-cultural evidence suggests breastfeeding problem...
Local physical and social environmental factors are important drivers of human health and behaviour. Environmental perception has been linked with both reproduction and parenting, but links between subjective environmental experiences and breastfeeding remain unclear. Using retrospective data from an online survey of UK mothers of children aged 0–2...
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought science into the public eye and to the attention of governments more than ever before. Much of this attention is on work in epidemiology, virology, and public health, with most behavioural advice in public health focussing squarely on ‘proximate’ determinants of behaviour. While epidemiological models are powerful...
Studies show that fathers across Western populations tend to provide more care to sons than daughters. Following a human behavioral ecological framework, we hypothesize that son-biases in fathering may (at least in part) be due to differences in fitness returns to paternal direct investments by child’s sex. In this study, we investigate sex-differe...
Objective:
Adolescence, a period of transition from childhood to adulthood, is a significant life stage under life history theory. The socio-ecological environment of adolescence likely influences developmental trajectory/later health, but current evolutionary research focuses on adult-defined Western concepts of environmental quality. An ethologic...
We welcome the comments by Harpur and Haddon (2020) on our paper on the typologies of social support and its associations with breastfeeding at two months in a UK sample. We share their concerns around the under-acknowledged costs of breastfeeding, and the need for a truly family-centred approach to breastfeeding support. However, they are mistaken...
There is extensive evidence to suggest that social support improves breastfeeding outcomes. Building on this evidence-base, public health services and interventions aiming to improve breastfeeding rates have primarily targeted informational and emotional support to mothers, reflecting an individual behaviour-change approach. However, mothers exist...
Non-maternal caregivers (allomothers) are hypothesised to lighten the mother’s workload, producing human’s specialised life history where multiple dependent offspring are produced over a relatively short time period. Here, using in-depth observational data on who for cares for 78 Agta children (aged 0-6 years, a foraging population in northern Phil...
Caregiving by nonparental caregivers, who provide direct and/or indirect investments to a child
Extensive evidence suggests that social support improves breastfeeding outcomes. Building on this evidence-base, public health services and interventions with aims to improve breastfeeding rates have focused on providing informational and emotional support to mothers. However, mothers presumably exist within a wider social network, and the characte...
Mother and infant health have long been under a spotlight, with an array of institutions and agencies targeting the mother-child unit to improve population outcomes. However, mothers and their children do not exist in a vacuum, and other actors provide mothers with essential support. Indeed, the discourse on mother-child health increasingly acknowl...
Background:
Referral rates from Health service to Children's Social Care (CSC) services vary across England. In 2019, the National Audit Office (re)iterated the urgent need to understand the drivers of such variation.
Methods:
Using administrative data (Children in Need Census, 2013-16), we calculated annual referral rates from Health to CSC ser...
Who helped you develop into the person you are today? Most of us may think about a parent or parents, but many of us would also recognise the important role of other people. Perhaps it’s a teacher, a grandparent, or a neighbourhood friend. The fact that we are supported by many people in our childhood is, in fact, very unusual: In non-human mammals...
Purpose The Children in Need Census (CIN) is a case-based administrative dataset on children referred to social care services in England. CIN includes information on the ‘needs’ of children, and whether they received social care support. Local and national government bodies in England currently use CIN for evaluation purposes. Data are accessible t...
What is 'adolescence'? This is a question we put to 28 teenagers aged 14-18 this summer. On the 28th of June 2018, a group of teenagers and researchers came together at a workshop at UCL to share their views and opinions about what adolescence means to them. The result was a day of likely conversations, brilliant ideas and stimulating reflections....
Preprint available: https://osf.io/q6fpx/
Fathers in Western populations tend to provide more care to sons than daughters. Following a Human Behavioural Ecological framework, we hypothesise that son-biases in fathering may (at least in part) be due to differences in the “returns to paternal caregiving” on children’s outcomes by sex. In this study...
The Chindren in Need (CIN) is a case-based administrative dataset holding information on all children referred to children’s social care services in England. As an administrative dataset, there is a lack of metadata which means using the data can be a steep learning curve for researchers. Interpreting the data can also be difficult, and the dataset...
What is 'adolescence'? This is a question we put to 28 teenagers aged 14-18 this summer. On the 28th of June 2018, a group of teenagers and researchers came together at a workshop at UCL to share their views and opinions about what adolescence means to them. The result was a day of likely conversations, brilliant ideas and stimulating reflections....
What is 'adolescence'? This is a question we put to 28 teenagers aged 14-18 this summer. On the 28th of June 2018, a group of teenagers and researchers came together at a workshop at UCL to share their views and opinions about what adolescence means to them. The result was a day of likely conversations, brilliant ideas and stimulating reflections....
We present findings investigating the different typologies of postnatal support in our sample of UK mothers, and the probability of breastfeeding at 2 months. We find that extensive support associated with breastfeeding – and lack of grandmother support associated lower breastfeeding (even though other sources of support is high). However, the type...
A review of 'Adolescence Across Cultures' - A presentation for young people at the Adolescence in Research Workshop funded by UCL Grand Challenges.
Invited talk for Biological Anthropology Seminar Series, University of Cambridge. 25/04/2018
An alloparent is any individual who is not the biological parent, who helps to raise the child by providing direct or indirect investments. Alloparents may include kin members such as grandparents, siblings, aunts and uncles, as well as non-kin such as friends, neighbours, and professional caregivers.
This lightning review suggests local authorities are failing to care for a substantial number of young carers. Many of the approximately 130,000 children who are missing out on support are likely to have substantial caring duties. This review poses questions for local authorities on their pathways for identifying, assessing and supporting young car...
Mothers face trade-offs between infant care and subsistence/economic activities. In traditional populations, allomothers such as fathers and grandmothers support mothers with young infants, allowing them to reduce labour activities and focus on breastfeeding. Similarly , the positive impact of social support on breastfeeding has been highlighted in...
Due to the fact that human mothers often have multiple, vulnerable offspring with long periods of dependency, it is argued that mothers need assistance from allomothers to successfully provide and care for their children. Cross-cultural observations and quantitative research converge on support for the idea that mothers in high fertility, high mort...
In contemporary developed populations, stepfather presence has been associated with detrimental effects on child development. However, the proximate mechanisms behind such effects are yet to be fully explored. From a behavioural ecological perspective, the negative effects associated with stepfathers may be due to the reduced quantity and quality o...
Grandparents are often identified as allomothers across cultures, where they provide direct and indirect investments to help rear children in a cooperative breeding system. Recent studies in traditional populations suggest that allomothers may substitute direct care, allowing mothers to invest more in subsistence activities, or substitute subsisten...
