Welcome back to the Stress Puzzle! I had the joy of speaking with Dr. Jenny Tung, an evolutionary anthropologist and geneticist who discusses her intergenerational and experimental research showing how the social environment affects health and lifespan in non-human primates. She shared about her creative methods to experiment with social hierarchies and the special experience of collaborating with the other women who have led the Amboseli Baboon Research Project in Kenya. For more on human hierarchies and health, check out our last episode with Dr. Michael Marmot.

Dr. Jenny Tung is the Director of the Department of Primate Behavior and Evolution at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany and a Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology and Biology at Duke University. She co-directs the Amboseli Baboon Research Project, which started in 1971 and is one of the longest running primate field sites in the world located in Kenya. Dr. Tung investigates the genetic and genomic consequences of social environments in baboons, rhesus macaques, and other social mammals. She has advanced the science on social determinants of health by adding DNA analyses to the decades of behavioral observations in baboons to advance lifespan understanding of social influences on health. She has also combined these lifespan studies with creative experimental methods that provide greater causal evidence for the impact of the social environment and on health. Dr. Tung was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2019 for the depth and translational importance of her research. Learn more about Dr. Tung's research: http://www.tung-lab.org/

Topics Discussed:

• Social Hierarchies and Health in Non-Human Primates
• Lifespan Studies and Social Relationships
• Plasticity of the Immune System to Changes in Social Environment
• Methodological Challenges and Future Directions
• Intergenerational Effects of Social Environment
• Collaborative Research through the Amboseli Baboon Research Project

Papers Mentioned:

• Tung, J., Archie, E. A., Altmann, J., & Alberts, S. C. (2016). Cumulative early life adversity predicts longevity in wild baboons. Nature communications, 7(1), 11181. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms11181
• Zipple, M. N., Archie, E. A., Tung, J., Altmann, J., & Alberts, S. C. (2019). Intergenerational effects of early adversity on survival in wild baboons. Elife, 8, e47433. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.47433

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The Stress Puzzle is hosted by Dr. Ryan L. Brown (https://www.ryanlinnbrown.com/) and supported by the UCSF Stress Measurement Network, an NIH/NIA funded network which aims to better understand the relationship between stress and health by improving the measurement of stress in research studies. Learn more about available resources to support stress research at: www.stressmeasurement.org.

Have burning questions about stress? Email us at stresspuzzlepod@gmail.com and we may feature your question in a future episode!

Welcome back to the Stress Puzzle! For our third episode, I was joined by Dr. Michael Marmot who is an expert on social status and health. We discussed his seminal work on the Whitehall Studies of British Civil Servants, translating research into policy, and how he remains an "evidence-based optimist" through it all. Tune in next month to hear about complementary research conducted by Dr. Jenny Tung on social status and health in nonhuman primates!

Dr. Michael Marmot is a Professor of Epidemiology at University College London, Director of the UCL Institute of Health Equity, and Past President of the World Medical Association. He has led multiple longitudinal cohort studies that have massively impacted our understanding of how social conditions influence health and aging, including the Whitehall Studies of British Civil Servants and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Professor Marmot has also chaired the Commission on Social Determinants of Health for the World Health Organization and conducted a Strategic Review of Health Inequalities in England to produce evidence-based policy recommendations to support population health. He was recognized as a global health hero at the World Health Assembly in 2019.

Topics Discussed:

• Social determinants of health / health disparities
• Impact of social policy on health equity
• Challenges of policy implementation
• Prevention science

Research Mentioned:

• Fair Society, Health Lives: The Marmot Review: https://www.instituteofhealthequity.org/resources-reports/fair-society-healthy-lives-the-marmot-review/fair-society-healthy-lives-full-report-pdf.pdf
• Whitehall I: Marmot MG, Rose G, Shipley M, Hamilton PJ. Employment grade and coronary heart disease in British civil servants. J Epidemiol Community Health (1978). 1978 Dec;32(4):244-9. doi: 10.1136/jech.32.4.244. PMID: 744814; PMCID: PMC1060958. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/744814/
• Whitehall II: Marmot MG, Smith GD, Stansfeld S, Patel C, North F, Head J, White I, Brunner E, Feeney A. Health inequalities among British civil servants: the Whitehall II study. Lancet. 1991 Jun 8;337(8754):1387-93. doi: 10.1016/0140-6736(91)93068-k. PMID: 1674771. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1674771/
• Destitution in the UK: https://www.jrf.org.uk/deep-poverty-and-destitution/destitution-in-the-uk-2023

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The Stress Puzzle is hosted by Dr. Ryan L. Brown (https://www.ryanlinnbrown.com/) and
supported by the UCSF Stress Measurement Network, an NIH/NIA funded network which
aims to better understand the relationship between stress and health by improving the
measurement of stress in research studies. Learn more about available resources to support
stress research at: www.stressmeasurement.org.

Have burning questions about stress? Email us at stresspuzzlepod@gmail.com and we may
feature your question in a future episode!