Throughout Washington, there is a lack of awareness about the Hanford nuclear site and its impacts on Native American tribes. Since 2015, teaching of Since Time Immemorial (STI) - a tribally developed curriculum covering Hanford and other issues - has been required throughout Washington schools.Yet, there is a lack of information on how this curriculum has been implemented and to what extent Hanford is being taught about. Thus, this research project aims to gather data on current teaching practices on the Hanford site as well as general tribal education throughout Washington schools. We also attempt to understand what measures can be taken to help teachers implement native centered curriculum, especially about Hanford. Initial research was conducted through semi structured interviews with stakeholders about current education practices and efforts to implement education about Hanford. This preliminary research was used to develop a survey for middle and high school teachers across Washington. The survey contained 15 multiple choice and short answer questions addressing the STI curriculum and education on Hanford. The survey also included an educational research guide for teachers who were interested in learning more about STI or Hanford. The survey was administered to 234 districts by emailing school administrators with the request that the survey be forwarded to teachers in their school; contact information for administrators was gathered through the WA OSPI website. Based on current data, it’s anticipated that there is very limited coverage of Hanford in schools due to time constraints, lack of interest, and omission from standard curriculums, suggesting a need to ensure that existing tribally developed curriculum is taught in classrooms. This is an urgent matter because lack of public awareness about the history and impacts of the Hanford Site on Native Americans allows for the harms to continue to be perpetrated. 

Vaccine hesitancy reflects concerns about the decision to vaccinate oneself or one's children. There is a broad range of factors contributing to vaccine hesitancy, including the compulsory nature of vaccines, their coincidental temporal relationships to adverse health outcomes, unfamiliarity with vaccine-preventable diseases, and lack of trust in corporations and public health agencies. In addition, the very success of vaccine programs has seemingly fueled increasing vaccine concern as vaccine-preventable diseases are no longer prevalent in the United States. This decrease in prevalence has led the attention of the public to shift from the necessity of vaccines to the safety of the vaccines themselves. In light of the current COVID-19 pandemic and the heavy economic and public health toll it has taken, it became clear that a vaccine may be the “magic bullet”. In the midst of a pandemic that is taking thousands of lives and has been devastating society, many people will find these uncertainties acceptable. While for others, as with many trade-offs, the benefit may have less emotional resonance than the possibility, no matter how small, of a potential risk. My research seeks to understand the risk perceptions of vaccination in an adult population in the Puget Sound region of Washington state. My hypothesis suggests that social proximity to COVID-19 will influence vaccine decision making & vaccine risk perception. I will be using the annual influenza shot as well as assessing smaller recent outbreaks to build a framework for my thesis. Understanding the factors that are influencing adults, when it comes to vaccine decision making, may help inform strategies for state and public health officials in their multifaceted roles of communicating effectively on the benefits and safety of vaccines to policy makers, media, and the public as a means to better support informed decision making.

 Human biospecimens have undeniably paved the way for medical progress, but historically also surfaces problematic ethical considerations around consent, compensation, and privacy. Marginalized communities have been historically exploited as test subjects and sample sources; unknowingly or unwillingly playing a lead character role in scientific research. This results in a legacy of distrust in science and medicine as well as health disparities. Broadly, I hope to examine cultural impacts and health legacies that result from exploitive research practices, specifically examining biospecimen collection from the Rongelap people during Project 4. in the Marshall Islands during the 1950's and other examples, such as Henrietta Lacks, and the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. By comparing these case studies, I endeavor to interrogate historical discourse around biospecimen collection in research to inform the relationship between scientific exploitation and population health disparities in marginalized communities today. In doing so, I hope to broaden the space for amplifying Marshallese voices and incorporating the population health impact of Project 4.1 into current dialogue around issues in scientific research.

Talanoa (Tongan compound word—tala meaning to talk and noa meaning balance: form of conversing in a relational learning space) has been used within Pasifika cultures to engage with each other in respectful and balanced ways. This research not only acknowledges the importance of talanoa (and its analogous forms throughout the Pacific Islands) within the context of schools, but also reveals the possibilities of dismantling the power dynamics that occur within Western educational institutions and settings through conversations and classroom discussions. The following research question: “Does talanoa within a relational learning space impact Pacific Islander (PI) and non-PI learners?” We have observed and conducted conversations with PI and non-PI students in the ANTH 306 - The Power of Representation: Pacific Islander Voices course which centers the talanoa framework. Additionally, we will be using Indigenous decolonizing methodologies by Tuhiwai-Smith (1999), Wilson (2008) and more to critically analyze discourse used throughout our observations. Our anticipated research results will highlight the significance of talanoa to educators and learners who have been introduced to and/or adapted to this framework. Talanoa being a space where relationships and connections are of value and emphasized—creating transformational learning environments for, but not exclusively to, marginalized communities. As Pacific Islander students, we bring awareness to our ways of sustaining and supporting our knowledge-making dialogue. Talanoa is one of many Indigenous tools for understanding how we, Pacific Islander students, are able to communicate more meaningfully and beyond traditional discussions.

Research Family (R.F.) is a student led group focused on Pacific Islander (P.I.) culture, diasporic identity, policy issues, and educational upbringing- to name a few. In this learning space, we emphasize relationship building and discourse within a safe space. We develop weekly curriculums; responsible for gathering resources, media, and often finding guest speakers. The purpose of our research is to reframe the narrative behind “research” from the Western notion of individualistic learning to a shift towards collaborative collective learning. Research should not be extractive, knowledge should constantly be moving respecting where, and whom, it comes from; research should value reciprocity, respect, and relationships. We ask the question, “does R.F. impact P.I. learning and representation within traditional education systems?” To reflect on R.F. impacts, we turn to our own community to learn about the experiences of past, and current, R.F. members. Interviews are conducted to answer this question. We find that R.F. helps students utilize their resources in our educational system creating space for our community and help build our capacities to further beyond the school grounds. Being in this position promotes strong leadership, communication, and collaboration that will greatly benefit members long past their time at the University of Washington.

Ovarian reserve, the pool of primary follicles available for recruitment, is a key determinant of female reproductive aging (e.g. age at menopause), but what determines ovarian reserve is not well understood. Telomeres, the non-coding DNA that cap the ends of chromosomes, may provide an explanation. Longer telomere length may establish higher ovarian reserve through three mechanisms: 1) Telomere length may limit the number of mitotic divisions, which determines the number of oogonia available to establish the ovarian reserve. 2) Oogonia with longer telomere length could be more likely to survive and differentiate into primary oocytes. 3) Follicular atresia is more likely to occur when there is an insufficient stock of granulosa cells around the primary oocytes. Telomere length may allow more granulosa cell division, maintaining the ovarian reserve. For these reasons, we expect longer telomere length to be associated with a larger ovarian reserve, which can be proxied by higher Anti-Müllerian Hormone levels. Using data from the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Study, we conduct regressions to assess the relationship between blood telomere length and Anti-Müllerian Hormone levels among 298 women (21.70 years ± 0.35). We measure telomere length using the monochrome multiplex quantitative polymerase chain reaction assay and we assay AMH using an enzyme immunoassay. Results and conclusions have yet to be obtained, though we have the data on hand. This is due to our goal of using best practices in science. Blinding ourselves to the data when designing the study may prevent bias and overfitting in our results. We expect our results to match our prediction: that longer telomere length is associated with higher Anti-Müllerian Hormone levels. Understanding the relationship between telomere length and ovarian reserve can provide more insight into the biological basis of reproductive age, menopause, and infertility, which may help guide family planning practices.

People who spend early life at high altitude have an increased capacity for aerobic work due to developmental adaptations to hypoxic environments. Since the effects of altitude on aerobic performance became evident after the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, altitude training has been implemented to increase red blood cell carrying capacity and improve performance. However, it is unclear how early development at altitude and current training at altitude may differently advantage endurance athletes. In order to test for possible mechanisms by which altitude enhances endurance performance, this research compares personal records and biomarkers of oxygen carrying capacity among endurance athletes who experienced early development at altitude or sea-level and are currently training at altitude or sea-level. The study aims to determine if the altitude in which athletes developed and are currently training at will be associated with faster gender-adjusted personal records and greater lung capacity. I conducted a cross-sectional observational study with 23 endurance athletes in Seattle, WA and Boulder, Colorado. Participants self-collected chest circumference (CC) at maximum inhalation and completed online questionnaires about running performance, family history, and personal motivations for competing. I devised a gender-adjusted personal record percentile score for each subject’s 5k times based on the top 500 US men’s and women’s 5k times recorded during the 2019 season. This presentation discusses the results on differences in personal records and CC in relation to early development and current training altitude. I examined athlete’s motivation for competing through the qualitative analysis of open-ended interview responses to explore how motivation works synergistically with physiological biomarkers. These findings will be discussed in terms of existing research and consideration for endurance training at altitude and sea-level.

Approximately 90% of women in the United States report physical or emotional changes prior to and during their period. These changes can include symptoms such as fatigue, cramps, reduced concentration and memory, sensitivity to noise and light, sadness, anxiety, irritability, mood swings, and sleeping too much or not enough. In the Fall Quarter of 2020, we collected sleep, mood, and menstruation data from 19 female university students over the course of 2 months. Participants wore Actiwatches to track sleep, light exposure, and activity. In addition, participants answered daily and one-time surveys about sleep, mood, and menstruation. We hypothesized that mood scores on menstruating days would be lower than scores on non-menstruating days. We analyzed differences in mean mood scores on menstruating days versus non-menstruating days. This mood score was on a scale from one to seven, with one indicating poor mood and seven indicating excellent mood. Since subjects reported significantly lower mood scores on menstruating days than on non-menstruating days, we aim to expand on research to uncover which variables impacted mood specifically. The t-test compared average scores for menstruating and non-menstruating per participant to allow us to compare results within and across all subjects. To test for other variables that may have contributed to lower mood, we will also examine how mood scores varied with participant birth control usage, activity, and natural light exposure. We hypothesize that additional variables such as natural light exposure and activity may have contributed to the statistically significant difference between mood reported on menstruating vs. non-menstruating days. Our work is important because while menstruation is extremely common, research on variables that impact mood during menstruation is often inconclusive or minimized by stigma.

In this study, we investigate the relationship between alcohol consumption and sleep efficiency among a sample of University of Washington students. Alcohol consumption has been found to activate the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, leading to an increase in cortisol levels. Elevated levels of cortisol are known to have adverse effects on sleep patterns. If the consumption of alcohol leads to elevated levels of cortisol which thus negatively affects sleep, we can predict that individuals who consume alcohol regularly will exhibit poorer sleep quality than individuals who do not consume alcohol at all. We hypothesize that individuals who consume alcohol regularly will exhibit poorer sleep quality than individuals who do not consume alcohol at all. To test this hypothesis we analyzed daily sleep data from 20 students collected from Actiwatches worn over two months. As a measure of sleep quality, we analyzed variation in sleep efficiency, defined as the percentage of time spent asleep while in bed. Participants reported alcohol usage in anonymous one-time surveys. We compared participants who drank on a weekly basis (between one to four or more times a week) versus participants who did not drink at all. Average sleep efficiency was calculated by the percentage of time spent asleep which gives an overall sense of how well an individual slept. The higher the percentage the higher the quality of sleep. Average sleep efficiency was significantly greater in participants who indicated they did not drink alcohol in comparison to those who did (85.16% vs. 73.02%, p = 0.01). It must be noted that the correlation between participants who do not drink and have higher average sleep efficiency cannot be stated as a causative relationship. Further research is suggested to determine whether weekly alcohol consumption directly affects sleep efficiency and if so, by what mechanisms.