Recent publications from SOA Alum Rebecca Crocker

Rebecca Crocker (Ph.D. 2016) is pleased to share some recent publications resulting from UA collaborations and a brief stint in industry.

Following several months in 2022 as a "Scientist-Cultural Anthropologist" at Variant Bio, a Seattle-based biotech start-up, she was hired as a consultant to co-author two commentaries detailing the company's novel community engaged and ethics-centered research approach in genomics studies around the world. In conjunction with thought leaders in Indigenous data sovereignty, these commentaries detail the company's policies on benefit sharing and results sharing that ensure a bidirectional research endeavor.

"Nothing about us without us: Sharing results with communities that provide genomic data"

Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867424009164?via%3Dihub

"Why community consultation matters in genomic research benefit-sharing models"

Link: https://genome.cshlp.org/content/34/1/1

Rebecca was pleased to return to the UA in Spring 2023 and have the opportunity to write up data drawn from a novel survey instrument about traditional medicine and healthcare access based off her ethnographic thesis
study at the SoA. This binational study relied on the expert quantitative skills of colleague Dan Martinez (UA, Sociology) and community engaged recruitment and research infrastructure of Nosotros team members David Garcia and Adriana Maldonado (UA, Public Health). Rebecca was thrilled to use this data to demonstrate pervasive sustained post-migration practices of traditional medicine among Mexican immigrants living in southern Arizona, and to argue for the importance of pre-migration health experiences in shaping post-migration care-seeking patterns.

"The maintenance of mexican traditional medicine practices among mexicans in southern Arizona"

Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027795362400426X?via%3Dihub

Lastly, Rebecca is grateful for 5 years of support from an NIH funded and CBPR study on sources of ecologic stress and resilience among Mexican origin residents of southern Yuma County, AZ (PI, Scott Carvajal, Public Health). She documented Mexicans' lay knowledge of stress and its health ramifications as an important source of resilience. Then, building off the experiences of the health workers (promotoras) who co-designed and led data gathering for this study, she guest edited a fully bilingual special issue of Practicing Anthropology that features 5 first-hand promotora accounts of being on the frontlines of participant-centered research in the height of the pandemic. She hopes this dedicated issue will serve as a tribute to their work and dedication.

"Knowledge of the Stress–Health Link as a Source of Resilience Among Mexicans in the Arizona Borderlands"

Link: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10497323241251776