Kristine Joy Chua

Fear and concerns about the current socio-political environment are becoming a worldwide issue for maternal and fetal health. Particularly salient are policies from authoritarian governments that are negatively impacting birth outcomes, resulting in the rise of preterm births. Yet, most of our understanding of the biological consequences of socio-political stress is localized to the U.S. context. For this reason, we identify the Philippines, which is experiencing intense State violence from President Duterte’s administration, as a prime location for learning more about maternal stress and its impacts on stress biology. This study will investigate the relationship between the perceived maternal socio-political environment, the production of biological shifts via placental epigenetic marks, and possible downstream effects on fetal development, among pregnant Filipina women. Perceptions of the socio-political environment will be measured through survey and qualitative data. Markers of biological stress will be measured via DNA methylation patterns from placenta tissue. Newborn metric data will be obtained from hospital records. We predict that mothers experiencing high socio-political stress will exhibit changes to DNA methylation and that these changes may result in poorer birth outcomes. Our findings will advance our understanding of intergenerational health and the biological responses to socio-political stress.