skip to main content


Title: Using craniofacial fluctuating asymmetry to examine the effects of sex, socioeconomic status, and early life experiences on adult age at death in industrial England
Abstract Objectives

Historical evidence from 18th‐ and 19th‐century England suggests that industrialization's impacts on health were largely negative, especially among marginalized groups. However, available documentary evidence is often biased toward adult men and rarely sheds light on the experiences of other members of the population, such as women and children. Craniofacial fluctuating asymmetry (FA) can serve as a proxy measurement of developmental instability and stress during development. This study examines the associations among age, sex, socioeconomic status (SES), and FA in skeletal samples from industrial‐era England.

Materials and Methods

The sample for this study comes from four industrial‐era cemeteries from England (A.D. 1711–1857). Geometric morphometric analyses of three‐dimensional landmark coordinate data were used to generate a measure of FA for each individual (Mahalanobis distance). A three‐way ANOVA was used to evaluate the impacts of sex, SES, and FA scores on adult age at death (n = 168).

Results

Significant associations existed between age at death and SES (p = 0.004) and FA scores (p = 0.094). Comparisons of the estimated means indicated that age at death was consistently higher among high SES individuals and individuals with FA scores less than one standard deviation from the mean.

Conclusions

This study supports findings from previous studies that have suggested that the differences in resource access and environmental buffering generated by socioeconomic inequality can impact longevity and patterns of mortality among socioeconomic status groups. Likewise, stress in early life—evinced by craniofacial fluctuating asymmetry—can influence observed patterns of longevity in adults decades later.

 
more » « less
PAR ID:
10491915
Author(s) / Creator(s):
 
Publisher / Repository:
Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)
Date Published:
Journal Name:
American Journal of Biological Anthropology
Volume:
184
Issue:
1
ISSN:
2692-7691
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. Abstract Objectives

    Intersectionality theory argues that various categories of identity and forms of systemic oppression interact and produce inequalities in resource access, economic opportunities, and health outcomes. However, there has been little explicit engagement with this theory by bioarchaeologists examining disparate health outcomes in the past. This study examines the associations among frailty, age at death, sex, and socioeconomic status (SES) in 18th‐ and 19th‐century England.

    Materials and methods

    The sample for this study comes from four industrial‐era cemeteries from England, ca. 1711–1857. The associations among adult age (18+ years), SES, sex, and three skeletal indicators of stress (dental enamel hypoplasia [DEH,n= 293], cribra orbitalia [CO,n= 457], periosteal lesions [PNB,n= 436]) are examined using hierarchical log‐linear analysis.

    Results

    Significant interactions existed among the variables examined for two skeletal indicators: high SES females had lower frequencies of CO relative to other groups and males between ages 30–45 years exhibited higher frequencies of PNB compared to females or males of older or younger ages, regardless of SES. Additionally, sex and SES were consistently associated with age at death.

    Conclusions

    These results suggest that patterns of stress indicators cannot be examined solely across unilateral axes of age, SES, or sex. Intersecting axes of privilege, marginalization, and structural oppression may have buffered high SES females from some negative health outcomes (CO) while predisposing them to others (risk of maternal mortality). Likewise, the hazardous working conditions relegated to adult males may have heightened the risk of injury, infection, and death for middle‐aged men in industrial‐era England.

     
    more » « less
  2. Abstract Objectives

    Craniofacial fluctuating asymmetry (FA) refers to the random deviations from symmetry exhibited across the craniofacial complex and can be used as a measure of developmental instability for organisms with bilateral symmetry. This article addresses the lack of data on craniofacial FA in nonhuman primates by analyzing FA magnitude and variation in chimpanzees, gorillas, and macaques. We offer a preliminary investigation into how FA, as a proxy for developmental instability, varies within and among nonhuman primates.

    Materials and Methods

    We generated 3D surface models of 121 crania fromPan troglodytes troglodytes,Gorilla gorilla gorilla, andMacaca fascicularis fascicularis. Using geometric morphometric techniques, the magnitude of observed FA was calculated and compared for each individual, sex, and taxon, along with the variation of FA across cranial regions and for each bilateral landmark.

    Results

    Gorillas and macaques exhibited higher and more similar magnitudes of FA to each other than either taxon did to chimpanzees; variation in magnitude of FA followed this same trend. No significant differences were detected between sexes using pooled data across species, but sex did influence FA magnitude within taxa in gorillas. Further, variation in FA variance across cranial regions and by landmark was not distributed in any particular pattern.

    Conclusion

    Possible environmentally induced causes for these patterns of FA magnitude include differences in growth rate and physiological stress experienced during life. Developmental stability may be greatest in chimpanzees in this sample. Additionally, these results point to appropriate landmarks for future FA analyses and may help suggest more urgent candidate taxa for conservation efforts.

     
    more » « less
  3. Abstract Background

    Most research on socioeconomic status (SES) and eating disorders (EDs) has focused on young White women. Consequently, little is known regarding how SES may relate to EDs/disordered eating in older adults, men, or people with different racial identities. We examined whether associations between SES and EDs/disordered eating differed across age, sex, and racial identity in a large, population‐based sample spanning early‐to‐later adulthood.

    Methods

    Analyses included 2797 women and 2781 men ages 18–65 (Mage = 37.41, SD = 7.38) from the population‐based Michigan State University Twin Registry. We first examined associations between SES and dimensional ED symptoms, binge eating (BE), and self‐reported ED diagnoses across age and sex in the full sample. We then examined the impact of racial identity on associations by conducting within‐ and between‐group analyses among Black and White participants.

    Results

    In the full sample, lower SES was associated with significantly greater odds of BE and lifetime EDs in men, but not women, across adulthood. The association between lower SES and greater BE risk was stronger for Black men than for White men, though significant in both groups. Conversely, Black women showed apositiveassociation between SES and dimensional ED symptoms that significantly differed from effects for Black men and White women.

    Conclusions

    Associations between socioeconomic disadvantage and EDs/disordered eating may be particularly robust for men in adulthood, especially men with a marginalized racial identity. Oppositely, Black women may encounter social pressures and minority stress in higher SES environments that could contribute to somewhat heightened ED risk.

    Public Significance

    Little is known regarding how associations between socioeconomic status (SES) and eating disorders (EDs) may differ across age/sex or racial identity. We found lower SES was associated with greater odds of a lifetime ED or binge eating in men only, with a particularly strong association between lower SES and binge eating for Black men. Results highlight the importance of examining how SES‐ED associations may differ across other aspects of identity.

     
    more » « less
  4. Abstract Objectives

    Recurrent famine events during the medieval period might have contributed to excess mortality during the Black Death in London, England (c. 1349–1350). Previous research using conventional methods of age estimation revealed that adult males experienced lower risks of mortality under “normal” (attritional) but not famine mortality conditions following the Black Death. However, given the biases inherent in conventional age estimation methods, this study reassesses sex differences in risks of medieval adult famine mortality using ages estimated via transition analysis, which avoids some of the limitations of conventional age estimation methods.

    Materials and Methods

    We apply hazards analysis (the Gompertz model of adult mortality) to ages estimated for human skeletal remains (n= 1245) from London cemeteries dated to the pre‐Black Death (c. 1000–1250 CE) and post‐Black Death (c. 1350–1540 CE) periods.

    Results

    The results reveal no sex differences in risks of mortality before the Black Death but indicate that adult males faced lower risks of mortality after the Black Death during conditions of normal and famine mortality.

    Conclusions

    These findings largely support those of our previous research, which suggested that selective mortality during the Black Death or sex‐biased improvements in standard of living following the epidemic reduced risk of mortality for adult males in the post‐Black Death period under normal mortality conditions. However, the use of transition analysis age estimates also revealed a reduced risk of mortality for post‐Black Death adult males under famine conditions.

     
    more » « less
  5. Abstract Objectives

    The second epidemiological transition describes a shift in predominant causes of death from infectious to degenerative (non‐communicable) diseases associated with the demographic transition from high to low levels of mortality and fertility. In England, the epidemiological transition followed the Industrial Revolution, but there is little reliable historical data on cause of death beforehand. Because of the association between the demographic and epidemiological transitions, skeletal data can potentially be used to examine demographic trends as a proxy for the latter. This study uses skeletal data to examine differences in survivorship in London, England in the decades preceding and following initial industrialization and the second epidemiological transition.

    Materials and Methods

    We use data (fromn = 924 adults) from London cemeteries (New Churchyard, New Bunhill Fields, St. Bride's Lower Churchyard, and St. Bride's Church Fleet Street) in use prior to and during industrialization (c.1569–1853 CE). We assess associations between estimated adult age at death and time period (pre‐industrial vs. industrial) using Kaplan–Meier survival analysis.

    Results

    We find evidence of significantly lower adult survivorship prior to industrialization (c.1569–1669 and 1670–1739 CE) compared to the industrial period (c.1740–1853 CE) (p < 0.001).

    Discussion

    Our results are consistent with historical evidence that, in London, survivorship was improving in the later 18th century, prior to the recognized beginning of the second epidemiological transition. These findings support the use of skeletal demographic data to examine the context of the second epidemiological transition in past populations.

     
    more » « less