Walkup Taylor Nicole, Winburn Allysha Powanda, Stock Michala
University of Tennessee Department of Anthropology, 1621 Cumberland Avenue Strong Hall, Knoxville, TN, 37996, USA.
University of West Florida Department of Anthropology, 11000 University Parkway Building 13, Pensacola, FL, 32514, USA.
Forensic Sci Int Synerg. 2023 May 22;6:100333. doi: 10.1016/j.fsisyn.2023.100333. eCollection 2023.
In societies where resources are unequally distributed, structural inequities can be physically over lifetimes. Lived experiences including racism, sexism, classism, and poverty can lead to chronic stress that prematurely ages body systems. This study tests the hypothesis that members of structurally vulnerable groups will exhibit premature aging in the form of antemortem tooth loss (AMTL). Analyzing Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) and white skeletal donors from the University of Tennessee, we predict that individuals from structurally vulnerable groups will exhibit more AMTL than individuals with more social privilege. We find some evidence for increased AMTL in BIPOC individuals, but significantly more AMTL in low-socioeconomic-status white individuals than either BIPOC or high-SES white individuals. We maintain that high rates of AMTL provide evidence of embodied consequences of social policies and utilize the violence continuum to theorize the ways in which poverty and inequity are normalized in U.S. society.
在资源分配不平等的社会中，结构性不平等会在人的一生中切实地体现出来。包括种族主义、性别歧视、阶级歧视和贫困在内的生活经历会导致慢性压力，使身体系统过早衰老。本研究检验了这样一个假设：结构上易受伤害群体的成员会以生前牙齿脱落（AMTL）的形式表现出早衰。通过分析田纳西大学的黑人、原住民和有色人种（BIPOC）以及白人骨骼捐赠者，我们预测，来自结构上易受伤害群体的个体比具有更多社会特权的个体将表现出更多的生前牙齿脱落。我们发现了一些证据表明BIPOC个体的生前牙齿脱落有所增加，但社会经济地位低的白人个体的生前牙齿脱落明显多于BIPOC个体或社会经济地位高的白人个体。我们认为，高比例的生前牙齿脱落提供了社会政策具体影响的证据，并利用暴力连续统来理论化贫困和不平等在美国社会中常态化的方式。
