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    Monica H. Keith, Ph.D.

    Assistant Professor of Anthropology

    Vanderbilt University 

     

     

     

     

  • About Me

    I am a biological anthropologist and data scientist researching health disparities and human variation in a biosocial framework. I direct the Anthropological Health and Data Science (AHDS) Lab at Vanderbilt University, where we integrate health, socioecological, and genetic data to assess drivers of disparate outcomes in maternal and reproductive health, child growth and nutrition, disease risk, and cardiometabolic health across the life course.

    I work with ongoing field studies in Dominica, Bangladesh, and Argentina researching health, growth, and biodemography in subsistence-based and Indigenous communities. My focus on reproductive health also extends to the US, where I work with data from the NIH National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to assess drivers of racialized disparities in pregnancy and birth outcomes.

    Another emerging area of my scholarship examines the impacts of climate change and environmental stressors, such as extreme heat and flooding, on human physiology, behavior, and health.

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    Monica H. Keith, PhD (she/her)

    Assistant Professor

    Department of Anthropology

    Vanderbilt University

    Nashville, TN 37235

     

    Interested graduate students or collaborators please inquire via email at: monica.h.keith@vanderbilt.edu

     

  • Research Projects & Collaborations

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    USA

    Social determinants of allostatic load and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, socioecology of pregnancy planning and support, racialized disparities in maternal and infant outcomes

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    UNT Health Science Center, Fort Worth, TX

    Biology of human thermoregulation, associations between genetic ancestry and hard and soft tissue morphology, physiological impacts of extreme temperature and humidity

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    Matlab, Bangladesh

    Child growth and development, impacts of household economic strategies, women's productive work, parental investment and trade-offs, climate effects on health

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    Saint David, Dominica

    Population genetics, quantitative genetics, GWAS of cardiometabolic traits, admixture mapping, impacts of colonialism in the Caribbean

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    Formosa, Argentina

    Infant and child growth, impacts of birth mode and breastfeeding, biomarkers and life history transitions

  • Peer-reviewed Publications

    Starkweather KE, Keith MH, Zohora FT, Alam N. 2024. Impacts of women’s work and childcare on child illness among Bangladeshi Shodagor communities. Social Science & Medicine, 359, 117277. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.117277

     

    Keith MH, Martin MA. 2024. Social Determinant Pathways to Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy Among Nulliparous U.S. Women. Women’s Health Issues, 34(1): 36-44. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.whi.2023.08.001

     

    Starkweather KE, Keith MH, Zohora F, Alam N. 2023. Economic impacts and nutritional outcomes of the 2017 floods in Bangladeshi Shodagor fishing families. American Journal of Human Biology: Extreme Climatic Events and Human Biology & Health [Special Issue], 10:e23826. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.23826 

     

    Martin MA, Keith MH, Pace RM, Smith JE, Ley S, Barbosa-Leiker C, Caffe B, Smith CB, Kunkle A, Lackey KA, Navarette AD, Pace CDW, Gogel AC, Eisenberg D, Fehrenkamp B, McGuire MA, McGuire SK, Meehan CL, Brindle E. 2022. SARS-CoV-2 specific antibody trajectories in mothers and infants over two months following maternal infection. Frontiers in Immunology, 13, 1015002. https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2022.1015002

     

    Martin MA, Keith MH, Olmedo S, Edwards D, Barrientes A, Pan A, Valeggia C. 2022. Cesarean section and breastfeeding outcomes in an Indigenous Qom community with high breastfeeding support. Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health 10(1): eoab045. https://doi.org/10.1093/emph/eoab045

     

    Keith MH, Flinn MV, Durbin HJ, Rowan TN, Blomquist GE, Taylor KH, Taylor JF, Decker JE. 2021. Genetic ancestry, admixture, and population structure in rural Dominica. PLOS One 16(11): e0258735. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258735

     

    Starkweather KE, Keith MH, Prall SP, Alam N, Zohora F, Emery Thompson M. 2021. Are fathers a good substitute for mothers? Paternal care and growth rates in Shodagor children. Developmental Psychobiology: Comparative Perspectives on Paternal Effects [Special Issue]. PMID: 34087947. https://doi.org/10.1002/dev.22148

     

    Keith MH, Blomquist GE, Flinn MV. 2019. Anthropometric heritability and child growth in a Caribbean village: A quantitative genetic analysis of longitudinal height, weight, and BMI in Bwa Mawego, Dominica. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 170:393–403. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.23924

     

    Starkweather KE, Keith MH. 2019. One piece of the matrilineal puzzle: the socioecology of maternal uncle investment. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: The evolution of female-biased kinship in humans and other mammals [Special Issue] 374:20180071. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2018.0071

     

    Starkweather KE, Keith MH. 2018. Estimating impacts of the nuclear family and heritability of nutritional outcomes in a boat-dwelling community. American Journal of Human Biology 30: e23105. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.23105

     

    Ahsan MH, Blomquist GE. 2015. Modeling variation in early life mortality in the western lowland gorilla: genetic, maternal and other effects. American Journal of Primatology 77: 666–678. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.22389

     

  • Media & Press

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