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.
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
USA
Social determinants of allostatic load and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, socioecology of pregnancy planning and support, racialized disparities in maternal and infant outcomes
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
Matlab, Bangladesh
Child growth and development, impacts of household economic strategies, women's productive work, parental investment and trade-offs, climate effects on health
Saint David, Dominica
Population genetics, quantitative genetics, GWAS of cardiometabolic traits, admixture mapping, impacts of colonialism in the Caribbean
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
Evolutionary Studies News "Vanderbilt Anthropologist Explores How Different Childcare Models Affect Child Health in Working Families" (2024)
Evolutionary Studies News "Researchers Root US Maternal Health Disparities in the Social Environment" (2023)
Evolutionary Studies News "Vanderbilt Anthropologist Discovers Lasting Effects from Disasters in Bangladesh" (2023)
Human Biology Association Podcast "Modeling Health Outcomes in Pregnancy with Dr. Monica Keith" (2022)
UW News "Anthropology researchers awarded prize in Decoding Maternal Morbidity Data Challenge" (2021)
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