C Panter-Brick
Biographic Data
| ID | 2543 |
|---|---|
| NAME | C Panter-Brick |
| GIVEN NAMES | C |
| FAMILY NAME | Panter-Brick |
| SIGNATURE | PANTER-BRICK C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Durham University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4635-2234 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 73 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 654 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 73 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1981 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 13 |
Belonging, discrimination, and risk in displacement
Background: Understanding the mental health challenges of refugee adolescents is critical for informing targeted educational policies and interventions. Yet few studies identify which school-based factors most strongly relate to their resilience and well-being. This study draws on a multi-informant dataset from 170 refugee students attending school in Greece, applying Bayesian variable selection to identify key predictors of mental health outcome…
A Preliminary Investigation of Associations Between Traumatic Events Experienced During Pregnancy and Salivary Diurnal Cortisol Levels of Brazilian Adolescent Mothers and Infants
INTRODUCTION: Interpersonal violence against women is a major global health problem that may have intergenerational effects. This study investigated associations between maternal experiences of interpersonal violence and other traumatic events and maternal and infant salivary diurnal cortisol in a cohort of adolescent mothers in São Paulo, Brazil. METHOD: Adolescent mothers (14-19 years) participating in a home-visiting intervention were intervie…
Pathways to everyday peace
Introduction A critical element of peacebuilding is engaging with how different groups understand pathways to peace, yet comparative insight across social groups remains limited. We conducted research with diverse stakeholder groups in Nouakchott, Mauritania — a socially diverse society negotiating peace within a conflict-affected region — to examine how people reason about pathways to everyday peace. Methods and results We used a participatory, …
Mapping the perceived impacts of a social innovation program on women’s agency and life satisfaction
Our findings suggest that We Love Reading can help change mindsets and meet a fundamental policy goal related to reading habits and knowledge empowerment in the Arab World. They show the need for mapping causal reasoning in systematic ways, taking into account different dimensions of agency in environments where social innovation can flourish
Public discourse narratives
Public discourse is rich in meaning, reflecting consensus, dissent, and change. Yet, very little public discourse on the humanitarian sector has been authored by aid workers themselves. We conducted a thematic analysis of the 'Secret Aid Worker' (SAW) series, published in The Guardian newspaper between 2015 and 2018, the only corpus of data on humanitarian life experiences publicly accessible through mainstream media. Our research questions were …
Volunteer programs, empowerment, and life satisfaction in Jordan
Through visual maps and scenarios of change, the study demonstrates a participatory approach to localizing knowledge and evaluating programs. This is key to improving scientific enquiry and public policy
Coparenting, mental health, and the pursuit of dignity
Does volunteering impact refugee women's life satisfaction, empowerment, and wellbeing? Experimental evidence, local knowledge, and causal reasoning
This program evaluation integrates scientifically-rigorous and culturally-relevant methodologies to identify impacts, local knowledge systems, and causal pathways of influence. This helps clarify how and why volunteering works in real-life situations across cultural contexts, calling attention to what programs seek to achieve, how they avoid volunteer burden, and why they generate social change
Social networks, empowerment, and wellbeing among Syrian refugee and Jordanian women
In response to large-scale refugee crises, frameworks for development assistance have promoted women’s empowerment, wellbeing, and social inclusion. A productive research agenda lies in analyzing social networks: it is unknown how women structure their social ties within refugee and host communities, and whether social networks matter for their sense of empowerment and wellbeing. In 2022, we surveyed Syrian refugee (n = 106) and Jordanian (n = 10…
Living with transience in high-risk humanitarian spaces
Deployment in a crisis zone is a perilous undertaking. Little is known right now about how humanitarian workers relate social and professional goals to lived experiences of high-risk environments. In South Sudan, ranked as the most dangerous country globally for aid workers, 20 international humanitarian staff were interviewed to examine their sense of place, well-being, and vocation, using thematic and interpretative phenomenological analysis. S…
Energizing partnerships in research-to-policy projects
On the ground, how can research initiatives unfold to make meaningful contributions to real-world practice and real-time policy? This article draws on a case study evaluating an innovative program to alleviate toxic stress, boost resilience, and promote social inclusion among Syrian refugee and Jordanian nonrefugee youth. I describe the kind of project design and community engagement that animates research on stress biology and lived experiences,…
Accelerated senescence as a cost of reproduction
Objectives Oxidative stress is hypothesized to contribute to age‐related somatic deterioration. Both reproductive and ecological context may necessitate tradeoffs that influence this outcome. We examined whether measures of lifetime reproductive effort were related to levels of oxidative stress biomarkers in peri‐ and post‐menopausal women and whether associations were moderated by rural or urban residence. Methods We surveyed 263 healthy women (…
Current Officers and Members of Standing Committees
Comparing online and in-person surveys
Humanitarian research with Syrian refugees can be difficult to conduct in-person, due to COVID-19 containment, security, and logistics issues. We assessed whether the online implementation of a brief, culturally grounded resilience measure would yield reliable responses for use with children and adolescents in the Middle East region. We implemented an online survey screening for socio-economic status, insecurity, prosocial behaviour, and resilien…
Solidarity, Social Justice, and Faith
This article examines how notions of solidarity, social justice, and faith guide humanitarian work at the U.S.-Mexico border. Based on interviews and participant observation in three regions, it examines the narratives of lay and religious actors serving migrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers, to understand the moral and political resonance of their work in the context of border surveillance, migrant detentions, and mass deportation. Different no…
Improving mental health and psychosocial wellbeing in humanitarian settings
Major knowledge gaps remain concerning the most effective ways to address mental health and psychosocial needs of populations affected by humanitarian crises. The Research for Health in Humanitarian Crisis (R2HC) program aims to strengthen humanitarian health practice and policy through research. As a significant portion of R2HC's research has focused on mental health and psychosocial support interventions, the program has been interested in stre…
Measuring the psychosocial, biological, and cognitive signatures of profound stress in humanitarian settings
Our work shows the value of rigorous research in humanitarian settings, emphasizing relevance for local communities and meaningful ways to build research ownership. Findings encourage the adoption of cognitive measures and stress biomarkers alongside self-report surveys in evaluating programme impacts. High-quality scientific research with youth can be feasible, useful, and ethical in humanitarian settings
Violence, Structural and Interpersonal
Anthropologists have made forceful contributions to knowledge on violence and its impact on human wellbeing. They have widened the World Health Organization's threefold typology of violence, with analyses that highlight structural and political violence, insidious forms of everyday violence that engender suffering, and the machinery of war. They have focused attention on visible and invisible forms of violence—the ramifications of power in armed …
The field of medical anthropology in Social Science & Medicine
Biocultural research in global mental health
Objectives Biocultural research remains a challenge in the field of global mental health. We sought to test associations between blood pressure and idioms of distress in a population survey. Methods We drew on a randomly selected sample of 991 adults (498 men, 493 women) in Afghanistan, for whom physiological and psychosocial data were systematically collected. Assessment of mental health (Self‐Reported Questionnaire, Afghan Symptom Checklist) in…
Resilience in Context
Validated measures are needed for assessing resilience in conflict settings. An Arabic version of the Child and Youth Resilience Measure (CYRM) was developed and tested in Jordan. Following qualitative work, surveys were implemented with male/female, refugee/nonrefugee samples (N = 603, 11-18 years). Confirmatory factor analyses tested three-factor structures for 28- and 12-item CYRMs and measurement equivalence across groups. CYRM-12 showed meas…
Medical Humanitarianism
In recent years, anthropologists have become increasingly present in medical humanitarian situations as scholars, consultants, and humanitarian practitioners and have acquired insight into medical humanitarian policy and practice. In 2012, we implemented a poll on anthropology, health, and humanitarian practice in which 75 anthropologists discussed their experiences in medical humanitarianism. Our goal was to move beyond the existing anarchy of i…
Resilience definitions, theory, and challenges
In this paper, inspired by the plenary panel at the 2013 meeting of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, Dr. Steven Southwick (chair) and multidisciplinary panelists Drs. George Bonanno, Ann Masten, Catherine Panter-Brick, and Rachel Yehuda tackle some of the most pressing current questions in the field of resilience research including: (1) how do we define resilience, (2) what are the most important determinants of resilience,…
How might global health master deadly sins and strive for greater virtues
In the spirit of critical reflection, we examine how the field of global health might surmount current challenges and prioritize its ethical mandate, namely to achieve, for all people, equity in health. We use the parlance of mastering deadly sins and striving for greater virtues in an effort to review what is needed to transform global health action. Global health falls prey to four main temptations: coveting silo gains, lusting for technologica…
Medical humanitarianism
Suffering, hope, and entrapment
A critical health-related issue in war-affected areas is how people make sense of adversity and why they show resilience in a high-risk environment. In Afghanistan, the burden of poor mental health arises in contexts of pervasive poverty, social inequality, and persistent violence. In 2006, we conducted face-to-face interviews with 1011 children (age 11-16) and 1011 adult caregivers, randomly selected in a school-based survey in three northern an…
Street Children, Human Rights, and Public Health
This review presents a critique of the academic and welfare literature on street children in developing countries, with supporting evidence from studies of homelessness in industrialized nations. The turn of the twenty-first century has seen a sea change of perspective in studies concerning street youth. This review examines five stark criticisms of the category "street child" and of research that focuses on the identifying characteristics of a s…
Health, Risk, and Resilience
Risk and resilience research articulates major explanatory frameworks regarding the persistence of health disparities. Specifically, scholars have advocated a sophisticated knowledge of risk, a more grounded understanding of resilience, and comprehensive and meaningful measurements of risk and resilience pathways across cultures. The goal is to operationalize research issues into sustainable health practice and equity-focused policy. This article…
Resilience in Context
Validated measures are needed for assessing resilience in conflict settings. An Arabic version of the Child and Youth Resilience Measure (CYRM) was developed and tested in Jordan. Following qualitative work, surveys were implemented with male/female, refugee/nonrefugee samples (N = 603, 11-18 years). Confirmatory factor analyses tested three-factor structures for 28- and 12-item CYRMs and measurement equivalence across groups. CYRM-12 showed meas…
Culturally compelling strategies for behaviour change
Behaviour change is notoriously difficult to initiate and sustain, and the reasons why efforts to promote healthy behaviours fail are coming under increasing scrutiny. To be successful, health interventions should build on existing practices, skills and priorities, recognise the constraints on human behaviour, and either feature community mobilisation or target those most receptive to change. Furthermore, interventions should strive to be cultura…
Conflict, violence, and health
The field of medical anthropology in Social Science & Medicine
Growth status of homeless Nepali boys
Human Adaptation and Accommodation
Saving lives, preserving livelihoods
The purpose of this paper is to analyse household decision-making regarding resource allocation in the aftermath of a food crisis in rural Niger. International attention had resulted in humanitarian agencies launching emergency nutrition programmes to alleviate persistently high levels of acute child malnutrition. We conducted participant observation, 93 in-depth interviews, 15 focus groups, 44 feeding and illness histories for children under 5, …
The social context of childcare practices and child malnutrition in Niger's recent food crisis
In 2004-05, Niger suffered a food crisis during which global attention focused on high levels of acute malnutrition among children. In response, decentralised emergency nutrition programmes were introduced into much of southern Niger. Child malnutrition, however, is a chronic problem and its links with food production and household food security are complex. This qualitative, anthropological study investigates pathways by which children are rende…
Medical humanitarianism
Biosocial Perspectives on Children
1. Introduction: biosocial research on children Catherine Panter-Brick 2. Evolutionary and biological aspects of childhood Barry Bogin 3. From the child's point of view: issues in the social construction of childhood Allison James 4. Biological anthropology and child health: context, process and outcome Catherine Panter-Brick 5. Child psychology and anthropology: an environmental view Robert A. LeVine 6. The meeting of nature and nurture and the …
Proximate Determinants of Birth Seasonality and Conception Failure in Nepal
Research on the underlying causes of population variation in levels of natural fertility has recently been given new impetus with the development of endocrinological measures able to track biological variation in human fecundity. Birth seasonality was examined for a non-contracepting population with low fertility and seasonally heavy workloads in rural Nepal. Reproductive histories were collected from 1983 to 1993, totalling 1829 live births (153…
Medical Humanitarianism
In recent years, anthropologists have become increasingly present in medical humanitarian situations as scholars, consultants, and humanitarian practitioners and have acquired insight into medical humanitarian policy and practice. In 2012, we implemented a poll on anthropology, health, and humanitarian practice in which 75 anthropologists discussed their experiences in medical humanitarianism. Our goal was to move beyond the existing anarchy of i…
Parental responses to consanguinity and genetic disease in Saudi Arabia
A health equity critique of social marketing
Energizing partnerships in research-to-policy projects
On the ground, how can research initiatives unfold to make meaningful contributions to real-world practice and real-time policy? This article draws on a case study evaluating an innovative program to alleviate toxic stress, boost resilience, and promote social inclusion among Syrian refugee and Jordanian nonrefugee youth. I describe the kind of project design and community engagement that animates research on stress biology and lived experiences,…
Homelessness, poverty, and risks to health
Homeless and street children are commonly portrayed in the academic and welfare literature as a prime category of ‘children at risk’. They have attracted world‐wide attention due to rising numbers in cities of the Western and developing world coupled with a discourse of childhood that ascribes risk to poor urban children unaccompanied by adults on the streets. This paper presents a critique of views about homeless and street children that rest up…
Methods Used in Research with Street Children in Nepal
The article presents a description and critique of a large range of anthropological methods used in research with children in Nepal. It highlights the importance of a comparative, multidisciplinary and emic perspective. The value of empirical biological research methods, their potential for triangulation with social methods and validity for policy and programming are discussed. Data collected on physical and psychological well-being of children f…
Homeless Street Boys in Nepal
Homeless children live and work independently of their families on the streets in many cities of the developing world. A survey was undertaken to compare the family backgrounds and current lifestyles of 329 six to seventeen year old Nepali boys is contrasting environments. A representative sample of 130 homeless boys is compared with three other groups of 54 rural, 62 urban squatter and 83 urban privileged school - children. Structured questionna…
Living with transience in high-risk humanitarian spaces
Deployment in a crisis zone is a perilous undertaking. Little is known right now about how humanitarian workers relate social and professional goals to lived experiences of high-risk environments. In South Sudan, ranked as the most dangerous country globally for aid workers, 20 international humanitarian staff were interviewed to examine their sense of place, well-being, and vocation, using thematic and interpretative phenomenological analysis. S…
Social networks, empowerment, and wellbeing among Syrian refugee and Jordanian women
In response to large-scale refugee crises, frameworks for development assistance have promoted women’s empowerment, wellbeing, and social inclusion. A productive research agenda lies in analyzing social networks: it is unknown how women structure their social ties within refugee and host communities, and whether social networks matter for their sense of empowerment and wellbeing. In 2022, we surveyed Syrian refugee (n = 106) and Jordanian (n = 10…
Solidarity, Social Justice, and Faith
This article examines how notions of solidarity, social justice, and faith guide humanitarian work at the U.S.-Mexico border. Based on interviews and participant observation in three regions, it examines the narratives of lay and religious actors serving migrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers, to understand the moral and political resonance of their work in the context of border surveillance, migrant detentions, and mass deportation. Different no…
Does volunteering impact refugee women's life satisfaction, empowerment, and wellbeing? Experimental evidence, local knowledge, and causal reasoning
This program evaluation integrates scientifically-rigorous and culturally-relevant methodologies to identify impacts, local knowledge systems, and causal pathways of influence. This helps clarify how and why volunteering works in real-life situations across cultural contexts, calling attention to what programs seek to achieve, how they avoid volunteer burden, and why they generate social change
The Natural Selection of Populations and Communities
Interrelationships between anthropometric and serum biochemical variables in children in Papua New Guinea
Interrelationships in nine characters in blood biochemistry from a study of lowland New Guinean children were examined, and after age adjustment, studied for correlations with a series of anthropometric variables. Few of the latter are significant, except for a striking relationship with serum uric acid in the males, and serum cholesterol in the females
Mesure des activités de travail
Panter-Brick Catherine. Mesure des activités de travail : étude du budget-temps et de la dépense énergétique/. In: Bulletins et Mémoires de la Société d'anthropologie de Paris, XIV° Série. Tome 5 fascicule 1-2, 1988. pp. 7-13
Motherhood and subsistence work
Lactation, birth spacing and maternal work-loads among two castes in rural Nepal
The nursing behaviour of rural Nepali women, from two castes inhabiting the same village, is quantified on the basis of 2202 hr of continuous and direct day-time observation over 1 year. Feed duration, interval, total time and daily frequency are examined in relation to women's work, particularly the type of subsistence activity and seasonality. ‘Opportunity’ feeds are governed both by infant demands and maternal activity. Caste differences in bi…
Parental responses to consanguinity and genetic disease in Saudi Arabia
Hemoglobin levels and step test performance of men and women in Nepal
The impact of low hemoglobin levels on the work performance of 74 rural Nepali villagers was examined with a 3 minute exercise step test. Work output was standardized at 75 watts for men and 55 watts for women. Hemoglobin values ranged from 4.2–15.7 g/dl, and averaged 12.0 ± 2.7 g/dl for 35 men and 10.9 ± 1.72 g/dl for 39 women. Low hemoglobin levels significantly elevated the heart rates and recovery times of the men, but not of the women. A pos…
Women's work and child nutrition
The food intake of 23 children, 1 to 50 months of age, from 2 different castes co‐existing in a mountain village of Nepal, was measured by means of weighing individual portions of 672 cooked food preparations over three consecutive days in two seasons of the year. Energy intakes are examined with respect to seasonality, infant age, sex, caste and body mass, and related to time‐allocation data on breastfeeding patterns and women's work outside the…
The ecological context of human ovarian function
New methods for monitoring ovarian function have allowed an extension of research venue beyond typical clinical settings to studies of human populations in their natural settings. Such studies have confirmed that patterns of variation in ovarian function with age and energetic factors are general features of human reproductive biology. Age patterns of ovarian function are extremely robust across populations of distinct genetic, ecological and cul…
Seasonality of reproductive function and weight loss in rural Nepali women
Menstrual and hormonal disturbances have been reported in thin, dieting and exercising Western women, and also recently in rural African women. A study of salivary progesterone profiles was undertaken in a Nepali population to examine whether seasonal increases in workload and changes in energy balance influenced ovarian function. Women's energy expenditure levels were moderately heavy in the winter and very heavy in the monsoon, and body mass fl…
Mother‐child food allocation and levels of subsistence activity in rural Nepal
Energy intake, energy expenditure and time‐allocation data for 25 child‐bearing rural Nepali women were examined for seasonal and caste differences, and food allocation compared for the mother and child. Food portions were weighed individually, activities recorded minute‐by‐minute, and mother‐child pairs observed continuously throughout the day, over three consecutive days per season at two different times of the year (repeated measures in both s…
Inter-individual and seasonal weight variation in rural Nepali women
Changes in body weight were examined for non-pregnant women in rural Nepal, using 183 anthropometric measures between the early winter and monsoon seasons in 1982, 1982–83, 1990–91 and 1993. The women gained weight when work loads decreased after the monsoon, but despite substantial changes in total energy expenditure, which were out of phase with changes in food intake, seasonal changes were small, averaging only up to 2.6% of initial body weigh…
Human Adaptation and Accommodation
Heart rate monitoring of physical activity among village, school, and homeless Nepali boys
Continuous HR monitoring, in conjunction with self-reports and direct observation of physical activity, was undertaken in three samples of 10-13-year-old Nepali boys living in different physical and socioeconomic environments. A total of 134 daytime HR profiles were recorded from 67 boys (76 from 31 villagers, 39 from 20 urban middle-class schoolboys, and 19 from 16 homeless street boys). Habitual levels of physical activity were compared using m…
Comparative study of flex heart rate in three samples of Nepali boys
Flex heart rate (HR, beats per minute) has assumed increasing importance in studies of energy expenditure and physical activity. Flex HR is defined as the mean of maximum rest and minimum exercise HR recorded during a standard test. This report examines methodological and substantive issues regarding the measurement and interpretation of population variation in flex HR values. Flex HR was determined for 80 Nepali 10-14-year-old boys living in con…
Physical activity, energy stores, and seasonal energy balance among men and women in Nepali households
The relationships among initial energy stores (body mass index), energy turnover (physical activity levels), and seasonal energy balance (weight changes) were examined in subsistence agropastoralists in rural Nepal. The population experiences no actual food shortage, but has a seasonal increase in physical activity levels, which are moderately heavy in early winter and very heavy in the monsoon season [men, 1.88 and 2.22 × basal metabolic rate (B…
Physical activity, energy stores, and seasonal energy balance among men and women in Nepali households
The relationships among initial energy stores (body mass index), energy turnover (physical activity levels), and seasonal energy balance (weight changes) were examined in subsistence agropastoralists in rural Nepal. The population experiences no actual food shortage, but has a seasonal increase in physical activity levels, which are moderately heavy in early winter and very heavy in the monsoon season [men, 1.88 and 2.22 × basal metabolic rate (B…
Seasonal and sex variation in physical activity levels among agro-pastoralists in Nepal
Considerable attention has been devoted to variation in levels of energy expenditure between and within populations; these are commonly evaluated following international guidelines for grading light, moderate, and heavy physical activity levels (PAL). This study presents activity profiles by season and sex for subsistence agro-pastoralists in Nepal, comparing data for a sample of 20 men observed four times across the year with previously publishe…
Growth status of homeless Nepali boys
Proximate Determinants of Birth Seasonality and Conception Failure in Nepal
Research on the underlying causes of population variation in levels of natural fertility has recently been given new impetus with the development of endocrinological measures able to track biological variation in human fecundity. Birth seasonality was examined for a non-contracepting population with low fertility and seasonally heavy workloads in rural Nepal. Reproductive histories were collected from 1983 to 1993, totalling 1829 live births (153…
Methods Used in Research with Street Children in Nepal
The article presents a description and critique of a large range of anthropological methods used in research with children in Nepal. It highlights the importance of a comparative, multidisciplinary and emic perspective. The value of empirical biological research methods, their potential for triangulation with social methods and validity for policy and programming are discussed. Data collected on physical and psychological well-being of children f…
Seasonal growth patterns in rural Nepali children
This paper reports on the prevalence of growth retardation, the impact of seasonality on height and weight gains, and significant relationships between growth velocity, nutritional status and morbidity, for a population living at subsistence level in rural Nepal. Monthly variation in growth pattern was examined for 71 boys and girls 0-49 months of age. At the height of the monsoon season, 71% of children were moderately stunted, but none was wast…
Household Responses to Food Shortages in Western Nepal
Food shortages occur periodically and predictably in over- populated areas of the foothills of the Himalaya, leading to extensive outmigration and to indebtedness of farmers. A survey of four administrative areas and in-depth interviews of 120 households (a sample of diverse caste and ethnic groups, stratified by land area) was undertaken in two districts of western Nepal to document the severity of shortfall in local agricultural production and …
Homeless Street Boys in Nepal
Homeless children live and work independently of their families on the streets in many cities of the developing world. A survey was undertaken to compare the family backgrounds and current lifestyles of 329 six to seventeen year old Nepali boys is contrasting environments. A representative sample of 130 homeless boys is compared with three other groups of 54 rural, 62 urban squatter and 83 urban privileged school - children. Structured questionna…
Biological and behavioral factors influence group differences in prolactin levels among breastfeeding Nepali women
Medicine (41 works) · Sociology (37 works) · Psychology (32 works) · Political science (29 works) · Demography (26 works) · Migration, Health and Trauma (23 works) · Geography (22 works) · Environmental health (16 works) · Biology (14 works) · Child Nutrition and Water Access (14 works)