Research

I am adjunct faculty of cultural anthropology at NKU and at Gateway Community and Technical College. I am also a doctoral student of biocultural/medical anthropology at the University of Kentucky. My work with rural health and nutrition is largely based in two disparate locations: Appalachian Kentucky and rural Alaska.

I am wrapping up a federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grant through the University of Kentucky. This research is a community-based participatory research (CBPR) project called Healthy, Well-Thee, and Wise of the faith-based Faith Moves Mountains program (PI Dr. Nancy Schoenberg, funded by the National Institutes of Health ). The ARRA supplement grant assesses the accuracy, feasibility, and cultural acceptability of various physical activity measures among rural Appalachians, including self-report, pedometers, and accelerometers. The outcomes of this study will determine which methodology to continue to use with the Healthy, Well-thee, and Wise participants to measure physical activity. I am in the final data analysis phase with this project and will begin publishing and presenting the findings in the Fall of 2011. I am also working on a Martin County, Kentucky environmental impact follow-up study to the coal sludge spill in 2000 in collaboration with University of Kentucky sociology professor Shaunna Scott and Eastern Kentucky University sociology professor Stephanie McSpirit. After spending a few weekends in the mountains of Martin County distributing, collecting, and administering surveys I am now in the data analysis phase and we hope to begin publishing the results shortly. I am currently working on three manuscripts for some of my other CBPR work on health programs in Appalachia including, “Appalachian Perspectives on Community Programming for Cancer Prevention”, “Perceptions of Tobacco Use in Rural Appalachia”, and “Perceptions of Healthy Eating Among Rural Appalachian Residents.”

My doctoral research investigates dietary decision-making among rural Alaska Natives (Central Yup’ik Eskimo language group). Because Alaska Natives are experiencing the “nutrition transition” as they increase their intake of Western, “market foods”, their health is rapidly declining with higher rates of diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and heart disease than other Americans. I am interested in determining the degree of dietary acculturation in traditional subsistence villages and how people make their daily food choices. I am interested in the structural and cultural barriers to good nutrition and how people think about food. I plan to live in rural native villages of Alaska for one year beginning the winter of 2012.

Selected Recent Publications

Scott, S., McSpirit, S., and Howell, B.M. (Submitted) The mining industry should provide the community with an emergency safety plan” Survey Results from 2001 and 2011, Martin County, Kentucky. Journal of Applied Sociology.

Scott, S., McSpirit, S., and Howell, B.M., and Irvin, M. (Submitted) A Blessing in Disguise? Reform of Public Water Management in Post-Disaster Martin County, Kentucky. Journal of Appalachian Studies.

Schoenberg, N., Bardach, S., Howell, B.M., Grosh, C., and Swanson, M. (Submitted) Perceptions of Healthy Eating Among Rural Appalachian Residents.

Kruger, T., Howell, B.M., Haney, A., Davis, R.E., Fields, N., and Schoenberg, N.E. (In Press) Perceptions of Smoking Cessation Programs in Rural Appalachia. American Journal of Health Behavior.

Schoenberg, N., Howell, B.M., and Fields, N. (In Press) Community Strategies to Address Cancer Disparities in Appalachian Kentucky. Family and Community Health 35(1).

Wies, J., Howell, B., & Falk, M. (In Press).  Medical Anthropology.  In Textbook of Child Global Health, Kamat, Deepak (ed.). ELk Grove Village, IL: American Academy of Pediatrics.

Howell, B.M. (2011) The Role of the Biological Perspective in Anthropology. Anthropologies: A Collaborative Online Project, Issue 5, August 2011 http://www.anthropologiesproject.org/

Howell, B.M. (2011) Review of the book Yaqui Homeland and Homeplace: The Everyday Production of Ethnic Identity, by Kristin C. Erickson, Oral History Review (38)2.

Howell, B.M. (2011) Review of the book Polio Voices: An Oral History from the American Polio Epidemics and Worldwide Eradication Efforts, by Julie Silver and Daniel Wilson, Oral History Review (38)1:226-228

Howell, B. (2010).  Human Growth and Development. In 21^st Century Anthropology: A Reference Handbook, Birx, James (ed.), Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Howell, B., & Shooner, A. (2010).  Human Biocultural Diversity. In 21^st Century Anthropology: A Reference Handbook, Birx, James (ed.), Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Howell, B., & Stambaugh, M. (2010).  Social Relationships.  In 21^st Century Anthropology: A Reference Handbook, Birx, James (ed.), Thousand Oaks: Sage.