Zaneta Thayer

Dartmouth College · Department of Anthropology

Anthropologists are interested in understanding patterns of human variation, whether assessed along cultural, biological, linguistic, or material metrics. Epigenetics, the study of heritable chemical modifications to DNA, is an emerging approach that could enrich modern anthropological research. Epigenetic marks can change in response to many of th...

Objectives: Among American Indians, prior research has found associations between early life trauma and the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in adulthood. Given the physiological changes associated with PTSD, early life trauma could indirectly contribute to chronic disease risk. However, the impact of early life trauma on adult...

Prenatal exposure to maternal stress is commonly associated with variation in Hypothalamic Pituitary Adrenal (HPA)-axis functioning in offspring. However, the strength or consistency of this response has never been empirically evaluated across vertebrate species. Here we meta-analyzed 114 results from 39 studies across 14 vertebrate species using B...

Despite their unique histories, environments, and lifestyles, historically subjugated populations consistently show poorer health outcomes compared to the general population. The theory of historical trauma, which argues that a collective trauma experienced by one generation can negatively impact the wellbeing of future generations , is a potential...

Objectives Cortisol is an important metabolic hormone that regulates multiple physiologic systems. Cortisol metabolism is sensitive to early life environments, including that experienced prenatally. Limited research has evaluated factors that predict variation in maternal and offspring toddler hair cortisol, which is important since hair cortisol r...

Infant social–emotional development may be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. This study investigated associations between maternal pre- and postnatal pandemic-related concerns and social–emotional developmental risk. Data, collected in 2020–2021, came from 220 mothers (87% white, 6% Hispanic, 1% Black, 3% Asian, 1% American Indian, Mage = 32.46 ye...

Background and objectives Childbirth fear, which has been argued to have an adaptive basis, exists on a spectrum. Pathologically high levels of childbirth fear is a clinical condition called tokophobia. As a chronic stressor in pregnancy, tokophobia could impact birth outcomes. Many factors associated with tokophobia, including inadequate labor sup...

Objectives: Hundreds of thousands of Rwandans were conceived during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, including thousands conceived by genocidal rape. We explore whether the duration of first trimester exposure to the genocide is associated with variation in adult mental health outcomes in individuals exposed to varying degrees of genocide-rela...

Abstract Background The early postpartum period is recognized cross-culturally as being important for recovery, with new parents receiving increased levels of community support. However, COVID-19-related lockdown measures may have disrupted these support systems, with possible implications for mental health. Here, we use a cross-sectional analysis...

Background An often under addressed and tragic legacy of genocide is the conception of children from rape. While the experience has been documented from their mothers' perspective, the perspectives and needs of individuals born of genocidal rape has been under-studied. Methods We conducted an integrative review of all peer-reviewed articles that r...

Poor maternal mental health and well-being during early stages of parenting impact child developmental outcomes. The primary objective of this study was to explore protective resources that may confer resilience among mothers living in low resourced neighborhoods in New Zealand. A purposive, non-probabilistic sampling method was used to recruit an...

Rwandans conceived by rape during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi have endured a violent beginning and a troubled childhood. Given compelling evidence of the influence of prenatal environments and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on future health, these individuals are at high risk of poor mental and physical health outcomes. The purpose of...

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented rates of unemployment in the United States. Pregnant workers may be especially affected as they are over-represented in low-wage service and hospitality industries impacted by the pandemic. We surveyed an online convenience sample of currently working pregnant people living in the U.S. (n = 1,417) to d...

Objectives Stress experienced by mothers during the prenatal period can have negative impacts on offspring development. Elevated BMI in childhood in response to early stress experience is a particularly critical outcome of interest since high BMI in childhood is associated with diabetes, heart disease and stroke in later life. The primary objective...

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted maternity care decisions, including plans to change providers or delivery location due to pandemic-related restrictions and fears. A relatively unexplored question, however, is how the pandemic may shape future maternity care preferences post-pandemic. Here, we use data collected from an online convenience survey...

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively affected physical and mental health worldwide. Pregnant women already exhibit an elevated risk for depression compared to the general public, a pattern expected to be exacerbated by the pandemic. Certain lifestyle factors, including moderate exercise, may help support mental health during pregnancy, b...

Background Non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) allows women to access genetic information about their fetuses without the physical risk inherent to prior testing methods. The advent of NIPT technology has led to concerns regarding the quality and process of informed consent, as a view of NIPT as “routine” could impair women’s considered approach w...

Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic has led to unprecedented levels of unemployment and financial strain for many Americans. Among the individuals impacted by financial strain are pregnant women, for whom added financial stress may be particularly impactful due to the costs associated with prenatal care and providing for a newborn. Financial stress...

Purpose: To identify whether COVID-19-related changes to how long pregnant women planned to work in pregnancy were associated with depression. Methods: An online convenience sample of pregnant women in the U.S. were recruited in April-May 2020 (N = 1,970) through social media and dissemination to U.S.-based maternal health contacts. We used multiva...

Evidence that fetal nutrition influences adult health has heightened interest in nutritional interventions targeting pregnancy. However, as is true for other placental mammals, human females have evolved mechanisms that help buffer the fetus against short-term fluctuations in maternal diet and energy status. In this review, we first discuss the evo...

Non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) allows women to access genetic information about their fetuses without the physical risk inherent to prior testing methods. The advent of NIPT technology has yielded concerns among bioethicists regarding the quality and process of informed consent, as the routinization of this technology could degrade the intent...

Non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) allows women to access genetic information about their fetuses without the physical risk inherent to prior testing methods. The advent of NIPT technology has yielded concerns among bioethicists regarding the quality and process of informed consent, as the routinization of this technology could degrade the intent...

Non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) allows women to access genetic information about their fetuses without the physical risk inherent to prior testing methods. The advent of NIPT technology has yielded concerns among bioethicists regarding the quality and process of informed consent, as the routinization of this technology could degrade the intent...

Adversities experienced by female baboons early in life can affect the survival of their offspring years later.

Background: Interpersonal discrimination experience has been associated with adverse birth outcomes. Limited research has evaluated this relationship within multicultural contexts outside the United States where the nature and salience of discrimination experiences may differ. Such research is important in order to help identify protective and ris...

Telomeres are repetitive DNA sequences at the end of chromosomes that function to protect chromosomes from degradation. Throughout the life course, telomere length decreases with age and is influenced by environmental factors and health conditions. This study aimed to determine the relative telomere lengths in a diverse cohort of about 4000 four-ye...

Objectives Adversity experience, in both childhood and adulthood, has been associated with the development of depression. However, it is currently unclear how variation in timing and duration of adversity across childhood and young adulthood affects the extent of depression symptomology. Methods Data were analyzed from 2610 individuals from the Na...

Epigenetics is an emerging area of research that introduces a new index of human variation to the field of genetic anthropology. Epigenetics is the study of stable and heritable modifications to the genome that can alter gene expression without altering the underlying DNA sequence. Epigenetic marks can be influenced by both the underlying genetic v...

This study investigated the relationship of American Indian boarding school attendance and chronic physical health. We hypothesized boarding school attendance would be associated with an increased number of chronic physical health problems. We also examined the relationship between boarding school attendance and the 15 chronic health problems that...

Developmental adaptation refers to the ability of an organism to modify its phenotype in response to environmental exposures over the course of growth and development. There are many examples of developmental adaptation within anthropology, including studies that evaluate the impacts of early life environments on phenotypes such as lung volume, sta...

Background: Human biologists have a longstanding interest in understanding the biological and health impacts of migration. Acculturation, the cultural adjustment that a group or individual experiences when previously separate cultures interact, has been found to be one pathway through which migration may impact human biology and health, not only f...

American Association of Physical Anthropologists (AAPA) membership surveys from 1996 and 1998 revealed significant gender disparities in academic status. A 2014 follow-up survey showed that gender equality had improved, particularly with respect to the number of women in tenure-stream positions. However, although women comprised 70% of AAPA members...

Background: Hispanic Americans consistently exhibit an intergenerational increase in the prevalence of many noncommunicable chronic physical and mental disorders. Methods: We review and synthesize evidence suggesting that a constellation of prenatal and postnatal factors may play crucial roles in explaining this trend. We draw from relevant lite...

Objective: An increase in cortisol during human pregnancy helps coordinate the onset of parturition, and can have long-term effects on offspring biology. Maternal cortisol can also be transferred to offspring via breast milk during lactation. However, little is known about how diurnal cortisol profiles vary by trimester of pregnancy or during the...

Objectives: The primary purpose of this study was to (i) examine associations between prenatal objective vulnerability and subjective stress, and (ii) investigate the relationships between prenatal vulnerability and subjective stress and early childhood BMI at 24- and 54- months of age after controlling for covariates. Methods: The Growing Up in...

American Association of Physical Anthropologists (AAPA) membership surveys from 1996 and 1998 revealed significant gender disparities in academic status. A 2014 follow-up survey showed that gender equality had improved, particularly with respect to the number of women in tenure-stream positions. However, although women comprised 70% of AAPA members...

Purpose: American Indian (AI) boarding school attendance is related to poor physical health status; however, little is known about how specific aspects of this experience contribute to poor health. Five experiences (age of first attendance, limited family visits, forced church attendance, prohibition on practicing AI culture and traditions, and pu...

Acculturation represents an important construct for elucidating the determinants and consequences of health disparities in minority populations. However, the processes and mechanisms underlying acculturation's effects on health are largely undetermined and warrant further study. We integrate concepts from anthropology and statistics to describe the...

Objectives: Hypertension prevalence is high among American Indians (AIs). AIs experience a substantial burden of interpersonal racial discrimination, which in other populations has been associated with higher blood pressure. The purpose of this study is to understand whether racial discrimination experiences are associated with higher blood pressu...

Acculturation represents an important construct in the context of health disparities. Although several studies have reported relationships between various aspects of acculturation and health in minority populations, crucial inconsistencies remain. One likely reason for these inconsistencies may relate to limitations in the conceptualization and ope...

Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand is a culturally and ethnically diverse city. Despite popular global conceptions regarding its utopian nature, the lived experience for many individuals in Auckland attests to the substantial social, economic, and health inequalities that exist there. In particular, rapidly rising home prices constrain housing decision...

The study of epigenetics, or chemical modifications to the genome that may alter gene expression, is a growing area of interest for social scientists. Anthropologists and human biologists are interested in epigenetics specifically, as it provides a potential link between the environment and the genome, as well as a new layer of complexity for the s...

Objectives Fetal exposure to elevated maternal cortisol can permanently modify hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis function, and thereby have long-term health impacts. Maternal cortisol steadily increases throughout normal pregnancy, but is abnormally high in preterm deliveries (<37 weeks). Prematurity remains a widespread public health probl...

Skin color has been proposed to contribute to race-based health disparities in the United States because of differences in ultraviolet (UV) light–induced vitamin D synthesis. The prediction of this hypothesis, herein named the UVD hypothesis, is that racial disparities in health outcomes are correlated with UV light availability. This paper investi...

Objectives Maternal hypothalamic pituitary adrenal-axis function regulates production of the stress hormone cortisol, which during pregnancy can cross the placenta and have lasting impacts on fetal growth and development. This article provides a preliminary test of the hypothesis that a woman's socioeconomic status (SES) predicts her cortisol durin...

The universal facial attractiveness (UFA) hypothesis proposes that some facial features are universally preferred because they are reliable signals of mate quality. The primary evidence for this hypothesis comes from cross-cultural studies of perceived attractiveness. However, these studies do not directly address patterns of morphological variatio...

Lower birth weight (BW) reoccurs across generations, but the intermediate mechanisms remain poorly understood. One potential pathway involves cortisol, which may be elevated in women born small and in turn could lead to fetal growth restriction in offspring. To test this possibility, we evaluated whether BW predicts hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (...

Human health tends to mirror gradients in social standing related to class, ethnicity and race. Past research in the social sciences suggests that environmental experiences related to social status contribute to these disparities, but the underlying biological mechanisms are only partially understood. Here, we review research related to three domai...

Human biology includes multiple adaptive mechanisms that allow adjustment to varying timescales of environmental change. Sensitive or critical periods in early development allow for the transfer of environmental information between generations, which helps an organism track gradual environmental change. There is growing evidence that offspring biol...

The chin, or mentum osseum, is one of the most distinctive anatomical traits of modern humans. A variety of hypotheses for the adaptive value of the chin have been proposed, ranging from mechanical stress resistance to sexual selection via mate choice. While the sexual selection hypothesis predicts dimorphism in chin shape, most biomechanical hypot...