Biosocial demography is work with a primary focus on social disparities with biological factors such as biomarkers or epigenetic measures included often as mechanisms via which social disparities "get under the skin" to produce health disparities.
CPHA research in this area includes:
- Herman Pontzer investigates the social and ecological factors affecting cardiometabolic outcomes among a traditional pastoralist community undergoing economic development in an increasingly hot, arid climate. He also examines the impact of childhood and adolescent allostatic load on cardiometabolic outcomes in adults, using the Great Smoky Mountain Study longitudinal sample.
- Beth Gifford examined associations between aging and Gulf War illness among veterans of the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War.
- Scott Lynch, with an external team of faculty from the U.S. Naval Academy, the Universities of
Pittsburgh, Tampa, and Maine, has spent several years involved in a project that investigates the simultaneous
roles of psychological factors and biomarkers in predicting successful completion of the Navy’s SEAL training
program (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL; BUD/S).