T W Mcdade
Biographic Data
| ID | 25029 |
|---|---|
| NAME | T W Mcdade |
| GIVEN NAMES | T W |
| FAMILY NAME | Mcdade |
| SIGNATURE | MCDADE T W |
| AFFILIATIONS | Northwestern University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5829-648X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 154 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1248 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 154 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 21 |
Dam‐Induced Displacement and Disruption Are Associated With Salivary Cortisol Concentration and Patterns of Diurnal Variation
OBJECTIVES: This study assesses the stress-related impacts of the construction of the Thwake Multipurpose Dam in Makueni, Kenya by examining salivary cortisol concentrations and patterns of diurnal variation. METHODS: One set of evening, waking, and 30-min post-waking saliva samples was collected across 221 women who were displaced by the dam or who lived upstream or downstream of the dam development site. Salivary cortisol concentration was anal…
Measuring Dynamic Inflammation Regulation in Low‐Resource Settings
INTRODUCTION: Inflammatory signaling mediates several homeostatic mechanisms that shape health, and quantifying inflammation regulation patterns using ex vivo cell culture systems-response to activation and sensitivity to inhibition-improves upon baseline measures of chronic inflammation. The purpose of this report is to demonstrate the feasibility of implementing an ex vivo cell culture system in a low-resource setting in the Dominican Republic.…
Everyday Discrimination and Adolescents’ Mental Health
Adolescents who report discrimination experience worse mental health. However, most research has been cross-sectional and retrospective. This study investigated how prospectively-assessed day-to-day perceptions of everyday discrimination relate to mental health symptoms in 395 adolescents across a 14-day ecological momentary assessment. Black adolescents reported discrimination on more days (15%) than White adolescents (6%), as did economically d…
Doing More With Less
In 2014 I published “Development and validation of assay protocols for use with dried blood spot samples” in the American Journal of Human Biology (McDade 2014). It appeared as part of the AJHB “Toolkit: Methods in Human Biology” series, a newly established mechanism for maintaining a virtual methods handbook that tracks new research directions, and provides up-to-date protocols for important, long-standing methods (Ellison and McDade 2012). I se…
Helicobacter pylori in the Philippines
Helicobacter pylori ( H. pylori ) is a bacterium that infects the stomach and is associated with various gastrointestinal outcomes and increased cardiovascular disease risk. We examined the role of sex in and the social and ecological factors associated with H. pylori seropositivity ( n = 124) and the relationship between seropositivity and systemic inflammation ( n = 116) among adults in Metro Cebu, Philippines. Data were drawn from the Cebu Lon…
Somatic Symptoms Are Associated With Elevated Blood Pressure and Epstein–Barr Virus Antibodies Among Shuar of the Ecuadorian Amazon
INTRODUCTION: This study tests the hypothesis that self-reported somatic symptoms are associated with biomarkers of stress, including elevated blood pressure and suppressed immune function, among Shuar adults living in the Ecuadorian Amazon. METHODS: Research was conducted in three Shuar communities in the Upano Valley of the Ecuadorian Amazon and included the collection of biomarkers and a structured morbidity interview. Participants self-report…
Teacher unfairness in adolescence, educational attainment, and adult Health
Teacher unfairness in adolescence predicted higher depression.•Greater perceived teacher unfairness relative to peers predicted higher depression.•School-wide teacher unfairness predicted poorer self-rated health in adulthood.•Educational attainment mediates the link of teacher unfairness and adult health
Explaining Racial and Ethnic Inequities in Sars-CoV-2-Related Outcomes
Adult knowledge of wild plants associated with limited delayed health and nutritional benefits for children or adults in the face of external change
Cross-sectional studies suggest that local ecological knowledge (LEK) helps humans cope with their environment. Among the forms of LEK, adult knowledge of wild plants has been associated with better child and adult health. We assess if the concurrent links between i) LEK and ii) health and nutritional status last and examine if LEK yields delayed benefits when societies face large socioeconomic and environmental changes. We use a yearly panel (20…
Intimate partner violence, depression, and chronic low‐grade inflammation among middle‐aged women in Cebu, Philippines
OBJECTIVES: Recent discussions in human biology have highlighted how local ecological contexts shape the relationship between social stressors and health across populations. Chronic low-grade inflammation has been proposed as a pathway linking social stressors to health, with evidence concentrated in high-income Western contexts. However, it remains unclear whether this is an important pathway in populations where prevalence is lower due to lower…
Lower Socioeconomic Status Predicts Increased Proinflammatory Signaling in Late Pregnancy
OBJECTIVES: Maternal socioeconomic status (SES) is an important predictor of adverse birth outcomes and postnatal health across global populations. Chronic inflammation is implicated in cardiometabolic disease risk in high-income contexts and is a potential pathway linking maternal adversity to offspring health trajectories. To clarify how socioeconomic inequality shapes pregnancy inflammation in middle-income settings, we investigated SES as a p…
C‐reactive protein (CRP) in high altitude Bolivian peri‐urban adolescents varies by adiposity, current illness, height, socioeconomic status, sex, and menarcheal status
OBJECTIVES: In non-industrialized and low-income populations, adipose stores can serve as a valuable buffer against harsh conditions such as seasonal food scarcity. However, these reserves may incur costs due to adipocytes' production of pro-inflammatory cytokines; inflammation is associated with increased risk for cardiometabolic diseases later in life. Life history theory posits that, especially in populations with high juvenile mortality, high…
Implementation of a minimally invasive cell culture system to measure the regulation of inflammation in a school‐based sample of adolescents
Dysregulated inflammation underlies many human diseases, and measures of responsiveness to activation, and sensitivity to inhibition, provide important information beyond baseline assessments of chronic inflammation. This study implements a simplified cell culture protocol in a school‐based setting, using finger stick capillary blood collected from 333 adolescents (age 11.4–15.6 years) incubated with lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Median cytokine resp…
Violence victimisation and young adult cardiometabolic health
In sum, adolescent exposure to direct interpersonal violence significantly affects young adult cardiometabolic health in ways suggesting adolescence is a sensitive period for the onset of harmful cardiometabolic effects in early adulthood. Findings warrant future study of underlying pathways and how these effects shape social inequities in cardiometabolic health among U.S. adults broadly
Men's physical health and life history transitions in the Philippines
Nigeria healthcare worker Sars-CoV-2 serology study
Healthcare workers, both globally and in Nigeria, have an increased risk for SARS-CoV-2 infection compared with the general population due to higher risk contacts, including occupational exposures. In addition, primary healthcare workers represent an important group for estimating prior infection to SARS-CoV-2 because they work at the first point-of-contact for most patients yet have not been included in prior COVID-19 seroepidemiology research i…
Association between infectious exposures in infancy and epigenetic age acceleration in young adulthood in metropolitan Cebu, Philippines
OBJECTIVES: The drivers of human life expectancy gains over the past 200 years are not well-established, with a potential role for historical reductions in infectious disease. We investigate whether infectious exposures in infancy predict biological aging using DNA methylation-based markers that forecast patterns of morbidity and mortality later in life. METHODS: N = 1450 participants from the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey-a prosp…
Trauma History Predicts Decoupling of C-Reactive Protein and Somatic Symptoms
OBJECTIVE: Systemic inflammation can induce somatic symptoms (e.g., pain, nausea, fatigue) through neuroimmune signaling pathways. Previous research suggests that early-life adversity amplifies signaling between peripheral inflammation and the brain. We therefore hypothesized that greater lifetime trauma exposure at baseline would predict stronger associations between systemic inflammation and somatic symptoms at 2.5-year follow-up in a cohort st…
Reply to Nwanaji‐Enwerema , 2023, “Exposome and low birthweight selection bias considerations in early life infections and epigenetic age relationships”
Employee Cardiometabolic Risk Following a Cluster-Randomized Workplace Intervention From the Work, Family and Health Network, 2009–2013
Objectives. To examine whether workplace interventions to increase workplace flexibility and supervisor support and decrease work–family conflict can reduce cardiometabolic risk. Methods. We randomly assigned employees from information technology (n = 555) and long-term care (n = 973) industries in the United States to the Work, Family and Health Network intervention or usual practice (we collected the data 2009–2013). We calculated a validated c…
Sleep Variability and Inflammation in Midlife and Older Women
OBJECTIVE: Shorter sleep duration and more sleep disturbances, in addition to greater night-to-night fluctuations in sleep (intraindividual variability; IIV), have been associated with elevated inflammation. However, these associations were only at the between-person level. The current study examined the within-person relationship between mean levels and IIV of sleep duration and sleep disturbances and C-reactive protein (CRP) in healthy, aging w…
Structural racism in school contexts and adolescent depression
Fathers' care in context
A highly sensitive multiplex immunoassay for inflammatory cytokines in dried blood spots
OBJECTIVES: Inflammatory cytokines are key regulators of inflammation, but current measurement approaches require venous blood to quantify low circulating concentrations associated with chronic, low-grade inflammation. This article describes a highly sensitive multiplex immunoassay protocol for the measurement of IL6, IL8, IL10, and TNFα in finger stick dried blood spot (DBS) samples. METHODS: The protocol uses a multiplex electrochemiluminescent…
Out of the Laboratory and Into the Field
OBJECTIVE: Field-based research on inflammation and health is typically limited to baseline measures of circulating cytokines or acute-phase proteins, whereas laboratory-based studies can pursue a more dynamic approach with ex vivo cell culture methods. The laboratory infrastructure required for culturing leukocytes limits application in community-based settings, which in turn limits scientific understandings of how psychosocial, behavioral, and …
Life history theory and the immune system
Within anthropology and human biology, there is growing interest in immune function and its importance to the ecology of human health and development. Biomedical research currently dominates our understanding of immunology, and this paper seeks to highlight the potential contribution of a population-based, ecological approach to the study of human immune function. Concepts from life-history theory are applied to highlight the major challenges and…
The high price of debt
What a drop can do
Logistical constraints associated with the collection and analysis of biological samples in community-based settings have been a significant impediment to integrative, multilevel biodemographic and biobehavioral research. However, recent methodological developments have overcome many of these constraints and have also expanded the options for incorporating biomarkers into population-based health research in international as well as domestic conte…
Emerging and Re-Emerging Infectious Diseases
We use an expanded framework of multiple epidemiologic transitions to review the issues of re/emerging infection. The first epidemiologic transition was associated with a rise in infectious diseases that accompanied the Neolithic Revolution. The second epidemiologic transition involved the shift from infectious to chronic disease mortality associated with industrialization. The recent resurgence of infectious disease mortality marks a third epide…
Status Incongruity in Samoan Youth
In Samoa, the presence of a matai title in the family has historically been a valued source of social status. However, as the process of Westernization continues, new sources of social status are emerging. This study explores the degree to which new and old markers of social status agree-or disagree -and the consequences they have for the experience of stress in 329 Samoan adolescents. The study integrates cultural and biological methods and data…
Maintenance versus growth
Immune function is a central component of maintenance effort, and it provides critical protection against the potentially life threatening effects of pathogens. However, immune defenses are energetically expensive, and the resources they consume are not available to support other activities related to growth and/or reproduction. In our study we use a life history theory framework to investigate tradeoffs between maintenance effort and growth amon…
Concepts and Methods in Studies Measuring Individual Ethnobotanical Knowledge
We review 34 quantitative studies that have measured individual-level variations in ethnobotanical knowledge, analyzing how those studies have conceptualized and operationalized ethnobotanical knowledge. We found that this type of research is recent but growing, and is concentrated in indigenous peoples of developing countries. We also found that studies differ on how they conceptualize and measure individual ethnobotanical knowledge. As it is th…
Lifestyle incongruity, social integration, and immune function in Samoan adolescents
Economic Development and Local Ecological Knowledge
Adolescents' expectations for the future predict health behaviors in early adulthood
The Ecologies of Human Immune Function
Immune function is notoriously complex, and current biomedical research elaborates this complexity by focusing on the cellular and molecular mechanisms that characterize immune defenses. However, the human immune system is a product of natural selection that develops and functions in whole organisms that are integral parts of their surrounding environments. A population-level, cross-cultural, adaptationist perspective is therefore a necessary com…
The Use of Dried Blood Spot Sampling in the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project
The high cooperation rate and quality of the spots collected suggest that the collection of DBSs in population-based research is a feasible and viable alternative to venous blood draws. The relative ease of sample collection, transport, and storage are significant benefits. Care should be taken, however, when comparing results from analysis of DBS samples with those obtained from serum or plasma samples
Long-Term (Secular) Change of Ethnobotanical Knowledge of Useful Plants
Anthropologists, conservation biologists, and psychologists have generally found a long-term (secular) decline of ethnobotanical knowledge among indigenous people. To estimate such knowledge loss, researchers have typically relied on a single cross-sectional data set to (a) measure knowledge among people of different ages, (b) compare measures between ages, and (c) infer a loss of knowledge if the old knew more than the young. We improve on the a…
Predictors of C‐reactive protein in Tsimane' 2 to 15 year‐olds in lowland Bolivia
Infectious disease is a major global determinant of child morbidity and mortality, and energetic investment in immune defenses (even in the absence of overt disease) is an important life‐history variable, with implications for human growth and development. This study uses a biomarker of immune activation (C‐reactive protein) to investigate an important aspect of child health among the Tsimane', a relatively isolated Amerindian population in lowla…
Relationships Between Skin Color, Income, and Blood Pressure Among African Americans in the Cardia Study
Objectives. We explored how income and skin color interact to influence the blood pressure of African American adults enrolled in the longitudinal Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study. Methods. Data were derived from 1893 African American CARDIA year-15 participants who had undergone skin reflectance assessments at year 7. We adjusted for age, gender, body mass index, smoking status, and use of antihypertensive medicati…
Evaluating indices of traditional ecological knowledge
BACKGROUND: New quantitative methods to collect and analyze data have produced novel findings in ethnobiology. A common application of quantitative methods in ethnobiology is to assess the traditional ecological knowledge of individuals. Few studies have addressed reliability of indices of traditional ecological knowledge constructed with different quantitative methods. METHODS: We assessed the associations among eight indices of traditional ecol…
Defining the "urban" in urbanization and health
Skin color, sex, and educational attainment in the post-civil rights era
Lifestyle incongruity, stress and immune function in indigenous Siberians
The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of economic and cultural change on immune function and psychosocial stress in an indigenous Siberian population. We examined Epstein‐Barr virus antibodies (EBV), an indirect biomarker of cell‐mediated immune function, in venous whole blood samples collected from 143 Yakut (Sakha) herders (45 men and 98 women) in six communities using a cross‐sectional study design. We modeled economic change…
Physical stature of adult Tsimane’ Amerindians, Bolivian Amazon in the 20th century
Biosocial Inheritance
Proponents of global market expansion claim that economic growth brings prosperity and creates a more equitable global society, yet these efforts may result in the exacerbation of economic disparities that translates into significant disparities in health. These trends underscore the importance of research examining the social determinants of health in an increasingly unequal world. This article brings together concepts from biocultural anthropol…
Predictors of C-Reactive Protein in the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project
These results highlight the fundamental causes of inflammation among older adults and suggest pathways through which social disparities in inflammation may be reduced
Moving beyond a Snapshot to Understand Changes in the Well-Being of Native Amazonians
Forces such as the opening of trade, globalization, multinational corporate resource extraction, urbanization, acculturation, and colonization catalyze economic, ecological, and sociocultural change, which can threaten the well-being and habitat of native Amazonians. Understanding these forces is of paramount importance to improve the well-being of native Amazonians and to foster the conservation of biological diversity, yet most analyses of thes…
The Biosocial Approach to Human Development, Behavior, and Health Across the Life Course
Social and biological phenomena are widely recognized as determinants of human development, health, and socioeconomic attainments across the life course, but our understanding of the underlying pathways and processes remains limited. To address this gap, we define the "biosocial approach" as one that conceptualizes the biological and social as mutually constituting, and that draws on models and methods from the biomedical and social/behavioral sc…
Social rank and adult male nutritional status
Prostates and profits
Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) is clinically diagnosed in approximately three-fourths of American men, a prevalence two to three times higher than that currently reported in Scotland and Japan. Prostatectomy is the most common operation performed on American men over 65. A critical medical anthropological analysis reveals that American urologists rely on prostatectomy to maintain their practices, and the growth of urology as a specialty is si…
The Weanlingʼs Dilemma Reconsidered
Infant feeding practices exert recognized effects on infant survival and command close attention from pediatricians, nutritionists, public health workers, demographers, social scientists, and parents. Despite considerable research and public health efforts, models to inform decision-making about timing of supplementation in policy and practice remain unsatisfactory. In the present review, new models are derived through analysis of the weanling's …
Emerging and Re-Emerging Infectious Diseases
We use an expanded framework of multiple epidemiologic transitions to review the issues of re/emerging infection. The first epidemiologic transition was associated with a rise in infectious diseases that accompanied the Neolithic Revolution. The second epidemiologic transition involved the shift from infectious to chronic disease mortality associated with industrialization. The recent resurgence of infectious disease mortality marks a third epide…
Evolutionary process and the ecology of human immune function
Evolutionary principles inform central design features of human immune defenses and provide key insights into this complicated host defense system. This article explores the selection pressures and adaptive responses that have elaborated the immune system over the course of evolution and discusses their implications for understanding contemporary immune development and function. Special attention is given to the challenges posed by diverse, rapid…
Culture change and stress in Western Samoan youth
This study was designed to pursue three objectives: 1) investigate the impact of culture change on children and adolescents in Western Samoa; 2) introduce a cross-cultural perspective to studies of psychosocial stress and immune function; and 3) evaluate the utility of minimally invasive methods for assessing immune function. Seven hundred sixty individuals between the ages of 4 and 20 years were recruited from three distinct geographic regions w…
Culture change and stress in Western Samoan youth
This study was designed to pursue three objectives: 1) investigate the impact of culture change on children and adolescents in Western Samoa; 2) introduce a cross-cultural perspective to studies of psychosocial stress and immune function; and 3) evaluate the utility of minimally invasive methods for assessing immune function. Seven hundred sixty individuals between the ages of 4 and 20 years were recruited from three distinct geographic regions w…
Epstein-Barr Virus Antibodies in Whole Blood Spots
OBJECTIVE: Study 1: Introduce and validate a method for measuring EBV p18-VCA antibodies in whole blood spots to provide a minimally invasive marker of cell-mediated immune function. Study 2: Apply this method to a large community-based study of psychopathology in children and adolescents. METHODS: The EBV antibody method was evaluated through analysis of precision, reliability, stability, and comparisons with plasma and indirect immunofluorescen…
Parent-offspring conflict and the cultural ecology of breast-feeding
Lifestyle incongruity, social integration, and immune function in Samoan adolescents
Defining the "urban" in urbanization and health
Status Incongruity in Samoan Youth
In Samoa, the presence of a matai title in the family has historically been a valued source of social status. However, as the process of Westernization continues, new sources of social status are emerging. This study explores the degree to which new and old markers of social status agree-or disagree -and the consequences they have for the experience of stress in 329 Samoan adolescents. The study integrates cultural and biological methods and data…
Life history theory and the immune system
Within anthropology and human biology, there is growing interest in immune function and its importance to the ecology of human health and development. Biomedical research currently dominates our understanding of immunology, and this paper seeks to highlight the potential contribution of a population-based, ecological approach to the study of human immune function. Concepts from life-history theory are applied to highlight the major challenges and…
High-Sensitivity Enzyme Immunoassay for C-Reactive Protein in Dried Blood Spots
C-Reactive protein (CRP), the prototypical acute-phase protein, is produced by liver hepatocytes and regulated by cytokines, particularly interleukin-6 (1)(2). Circulating concentrations of CRP indicate inflammatory activity, and the recent development of highly sensitive CRP assays (3)(4)(5) has led to the discovery that slight increases in CRP (>1–2 mg/L) are indicative of low-grade inflammatory processes that may be related to the pathophysiol…
Socialization Ambiguity in Samoan Adolescents
Rapid globalization is forcing youth around the world to confront new developmental challenges, and conceptual models are needed that can capture this experience and its developmental implications. Exposure to nontraditional lifestyles opens up new socialization opportunities and raises the possibility of stress‐inducing dissonance between participating socializing agents and the messages they deliver. Socialization ambiguity is introduced as a m…
Life history, maintenance, and the early origins of immune function
There is compelling evidence to suggest that early environments are important determinants of immune function over the life course. While current research focuses on proximate mechanisms and clinical implications, an adaptationist perspective may contribute a theoretical basis for explaining, rather than merely describing, the long-term impact of early environments. Life history theory in particular, with its emphasis on the life cycle and invest…
Do smiles have a face value? Panel evidence from Amazonian Indians
Predictors of C‐reactive protein in Tsimane' 2 to 15 year‐olds in lowland Bolivia
Infectious disease is a major global determinant of child morbidity and mortality, and energetic investment in immune defenses (even in the absence of overt disease) is an important life‐history variable, with implications for human growth and development. This study uses a biomarker of immune activation (C‐reactive protein) to investigate an important aspect of child health among the Tsimane', a relatively isolated Amerindian population in lowla…
Physical stature of adult Tsimane’ Amerindians, Bolivian Amazon in the 20th century
The Ecologies of Human Immune Function
Immune function is notoriously complex, and current biomedical research elaborates this complexity by focusing on the cellular and molecular mechanisms that characterize immune defenses. However, the human immune system is a product of natural selection that develops and functions in whole organisms that are integral parts of their surrounding environments. A population-level, cross-cultural, adaptationist perspective is therefore a necessary com…
Measurement of leptin in dried blood spot samples
Leptin is important in a wide range of physiological processes, but logistical constraints associated with venipuncture blood collection have limited research on leptin in diverse, community-based settings. The aim of this short report is to present and validate an enzyme immunoassay method for quantifying leptin in samples of capillary whole blood collected from a simple finger prick and dried on filter paper. The method was evaluated through an…
Psychosocial and Behavioral Predictors of Inflammation in Middle-Aged and Older Adults
OBJECTIVE: C-reactive protein (CRP) is emerging as an important predictor of cardiovascular disease (CVD), and chronic inflammation may be a mechanism through which stress affects disease risk. We investigated the contribution of behavioral and psychosocial factors to variation in CRP concentrations in a population-based sample of middle-aged and older adults. METHODS: A high sensitivity enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) validated for use…
On the accuracy of perceived parental height in a native Amazonian society
Evaluating indices of traditional ecological knowledge
BACKGROUND: New quantitative methods to collect and analyze data have produced novel findings in ethnobiology. A common application of quantitative methods in ethnobiology is to assess the traditional ecological knowledge of individuals. Few studies have addressed reliability of indices of traditional ecological knowledge constructed with different quantitative methods. METHODS: We assessed the associations among eight indices of traditional ecol…
The origins of monetary income inequality
Why do mothers favor girls and fathers, boys
Medicine (118 works) · Demography (72 works) · Biology (67 works) · Psychology (61 works) · Internal Medicine (57 works) · Sociology (52 works) · Population (44 works) · Environmental health (37 works) · Geography (34 works) · Gerontology (32 works)