About

Barbara Piperata is a Professor and the Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Anthropology at The Ohio State University. Her research applies theories and methods from human biology and medical anthropology to understand how people cope with resource insecurities such as food, water, and energy, and the effects of these insecurities on health and well-being. She conducts original field-based research in several Latin American countries, including Nicaragua, where she studies the effects of food insecurity on mothers' mental health, children's diets, and child growth, and in Brazil's Amazon region, where she investigates the dietary impacts of rapid economic change and the role of Brazil’s large poverty alleviation program (Bolsa Familia) on dietary patterns and health. Currently, she leads a multidisciplinary project in Belém, Brazil, exploring how cultural beliefs and practices intersect with household poverty and resource insecurities to influence the development of the infant gut and oral microbiomes during the first two years of life, in collaboration with colleagues and students from OSU, the University of São Paulo, and the Federal University of Pará. Her recent research in Ecuador's Chocó region examines how food, energy, and water insecurities intersect to shape health and well-being. She directs the Medical Anthropology Major within OSU's Department of Anthropology and co-directs the Human Biological Anthropology Lab, offering research opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students. As a member of the HEALMOD core faculty, she collaborates on analyzing and modeling data from these projects to advance understanding of how complex socio-ecological contexts influence human health.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Medicine
• Psychology
• Environmental health
• Computer Science
• Sociology
• Ecology
• Social psychology
• Data science
• Socioeconomics
• Economics
• Geography
• Biology
• Psychiatry

Selected publications

• Coping with water insecurity despite access and abundance in the urban Amazon

  Journal of Water Sanitation and Hygiene for Development · 2025-07-01

  articleOpen access

  ABSTRACT Research on household water insecurity continues to overemphasize water scarcity and rural contexts, resulting in a poorer understanding of water insecurity in urban, water-abundant settings. At the same time, while the dimensions of water insecurity include availability, access, utilization and stability, current instruments focus on access to water, thus, inadequately explore people's experiences utilizing available water. This study aimed to characterize and explore the impacts of household water insecurity on residents of the city of Belém, Pará, Brazil, where water is available and access to piped municipal water is common, but its provision and quality vary. We applied the Household Water Insecurity Experiences Scale (HWISE) to evaluate water insecurity in 188 households (110 LSES; 78 HSES). In a subset of 47 households, we complemented the HWISE with a novel instrument, developed via participant observation, that assessed all points of water access and use within the home. Per HWISE, 28% of households were water insecure, with a higher proportion of water insecurity occurring in LSES households. Data collected via our complementary instrument indicate that HWISE underestimated water insecurity in our sample, as 87% of the subset households reported issues affecting their utilization of water regardless of household water insecurity status.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Biocultural Determinants of Mothers' Complementary Feeding Decisions in the Urban Brazilian Amazon

  American Journal of Human Biology · 2025-05-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  OBJECTIVE: Complementary feeding (CF) occurs during a critical period of infant growth and development with life-long health implications. Despite international efforts, there remains significant variation in the adequacy of complementary diets across settings. In Brazil, there is marked variation in adherence to CF guidelines and infant growth outcomes, with the north (Amazon) lagging other regions of the country. This study aimed to characterize the complementary diet and develop a model to explain feeding decisions in the Amazonian city of Belém. METHODS: With a sample of n = 30 mothers, we combined 24-h dietary recalls, a pile-sorting activity, and in-depth interviews to address study aims. Using descriptive statistics, we analyzed the pile-sort data to characterize the evolving complementary diet. Then, using thematic analysis of interview transcripts, we identified the most salient factors shaping mothers' feeding decisions. RESULTS: While there was variation in opinion regarding the timing of introduction of liquids other than breastmilk and ultra-processed convenience foods, we found high consensus regarding the ideal complementary diet which, beginning at 6 months, met WHO dietary diversity guidelines and evolved with infant age. Three themes-integrating and applying trusted sources of advice, infant readiness and future health, and challenges to feeding ideals-illustrate how socioeconomic, cultural, and infant bio-behavioral cues interact to shape CF. CONCLUSION: Efforts to improve infant feeding must move beyond identifying individual factors and toward biocultural models that consider how political-economic and local contexts interact to influence the ethnomedical systems, household sociocultural dynamics, including income, gender, and age-based responsibilities, and power relations that shape feeding behaviors.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Botanic Age: Planting the Seeds of Human EvolutionBy DeanFalk, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2025. 251 pp. $29.95 (hardcover). ISBN: 978‐1‐48‐754664‐9

  American Journal of Human Biology · 2025-12-01

  articleSenior author

  Dean Falk, in her recent book “The Botanic Age: Planting the Seeds of Human Evolution,” challenges readers to consider the roles plant materials—sticks, branches, leaves, vines, etc.—had in shaping the evolution of our hominin lineage. Chapter by chapter Falk presents the challenges our ancestors faced and the ways botanic materials may have been used to solve those problems—necessity is the mother of invention. For Falk, the botanical tool kit not only improved survival but spurred selection for a large brain through a series of cognitive “hops.” With no archaeological record of these organic tools, Falk relies on research among the great apes and small-scale subsistence societies to envision how and when in time our hominin ancestors used plant materials to solve various challenges. The idea that our hominin ancestors used plant-based tools is neither new nor debated. Rather, what we found important about this book is the attention Falk draws to the myriad selective pressures our ancestors faced—they had more problems to solve than securing food and these problems were present well before stone tools appeared in the archaeological record around 3.5 mya. Plants helped. Also important is that in considering this broader array of pressures and the plant materials likely employed to respond to them, we can envision how all members of our hominin ancestral communities—females and males, adults, and juveniles—contributed to our evolutionary story. The first three chapters focus on a behavior common to all contemporary great apes, the use of botanic materials to construct arboreal sleeping nests. Falk argues that early hominins could have built nests the same way. She considers the nests a kind of tool for sleeping, a tool that is made anew every day in a different tree with its own unique opportunities and challenges. The cognitive complexity demonstrated in making these tools is impressive. Orangutans, for example, partially break branches, bend and weave them together as the nest's foundation, and then add leaf matter for padding. It was during the Botanic Age (6.5 to 3.5 mya) that our hominin ancestors diverged from the other great apes and took an evolutionary path that involved habitual bipedalism. The changes in foot and hip anatomy associated with bipedalism indicate that early hominins would have lost some of their ability to navigate a life in trees, and hence presumably spent more time on the ground. The shift to bipedalism also coincided with climatic changes that resulted in a gradual transition to drier open forest and grassland habitats with fewer sleeping trees. Falk argues that ‘somewhere’ in this period of change hominins shifted from sleeping in tree nests to nests on the ground. Interestingly, she suggests that carrying materials for ground-based sleeping nests would have been a major impetus toward bipedalism given the generally accepted idea that one of the factors selecting for bipedalism was the benefit of being able to carry things. Chapter 4 focuses on a less often considered change that accompanied the transition to bipedalism, that is, the lessened ability of infants to cling to their mothers by using their feet. Hence mothers would have needed to carry their infants while they foraged for food, climbed trees, built nests, etc. Logically, that means mothers would have benefited from baby-carrying devices. In support of this idea, Falk provides examples from small-scale subsistence societies of mothers fashioning baby-carrying devices from botanic materials. Slings are the simplest devices, and we (DLD) observed women in a small-scale subsistence society in the Amazon (1970's) using slings made of bark stripped from trees. Chapter 5 is one of the most compelling and brings home the idea of a Botanic Age. In it, Falk argues that wooden stick tools preceded the stone tools of the Stone Age, and hence, stone tools were part of a long progression of tool use and do not represent the leap in cognition often imagined. Since an archaeological record of wooden tools from the first 3 million years of hominin evolution is missing, Falk assumes that early hominins were at least as capable of making and using wooden stick tools as living chimpanzees, and hence that chimpanzees can serve as referential models. The savanna-dwelling chimps at a site called Fongoli are an interesting model since they inhabit an environment more like that of early hominins than do forest-dwelling chimpanzees. Fongoli chimpanzees use stick tools in a variety of ways including “extractive foraging” of underground vegetable foods and the hunting of sleeping bush babies (Galago). The last two chapters of the book, chapters 6 and 7, are the most speculative as the author lacks good models to explore changes in the Botanic Age. In chapter 6, Falk proposes that the greatest “cognitive leap” in our evolutionary history was the invention of language and that this occurred with the transition to bipedalism. Her argument is that the gradual loss of infants' abilities to grasp onto their mothers would have stimulated vocalizations that led to a simple language between mother–infant pairs, and this simple language then formed the basis for what eventually developed into the complex, symbolic language that sets humans apart from other animals. In the last chapter of the book, Falk contemplates the role botanics played in hominin colonization of the Pacific Islands. Using anatomical data from Homo floresiensis and Homo luzonensis on the Pacific Islands of Flores and Luzon, respectively, Falk argues that these tree-adept hominins likely arrived on the islands on botanic rafts during tropical storms common across the region. These rafts may have been “tools,” that is, sleeping nests these hominins made, or palm trees or mangroves that they were occupying or latched onto. In sum, Falk's principal argument is that the use of botanic tools to solve problems predated the use of stone tools and fostered the cognitive development of our hominin ancestors, leading to our success as a species. Throughout the book Falk emphasizes the challenges of trying to understand the first 3 million years of hominin evolution, acknowledges the speculation involved, and is careful in identifying the kinds of evidence she is using to support her argument. The book is targeted at a broad audience, highly readable and engaging. We can imagine sharing it with family and friends who ask—what is it that anthropologists do? We can also imagine assigning the entire book or even a few chapters to undergraduates in a human evolution course. It would certainly generate discussion and stimulate debate. Interviews with the scholars who conducted some of the research Falk relied on to make her case are a unique feature of the book and illustrate how science progresses by building and expanding upon the contributions of scholars in one's own field as well as allied fields. A discussion of that portion of the book with students could be illuminating and inspiring. The authors have nothing to report. The authors declare no conflicts of interest. Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.

  PublisherDOI

• Between Two Worlds: Challenges Measuring Food Insecurity with a Standardized Scale in a Multiethnic Peri-Urban Indigenous Community in the Brazilian Amazon

  Ecology of Food and Nutrition · 2025-07-29

  articleSenior author

  , a multiethnic community in Manaus, Brazil, perceived the EBIA's ability to capture their food security experiences. To achieve this, we conducted focus group discussions (FGDs). Results indicate frustration with the instrument's language which impeded understanding and generated feelings of inadequacy and distrust. Participants indicated the EBIA did not adequately capture their challenges accessing food and, thus, miscalculated community food insecurity. These findings support previous research arguing for adapting standardized food security instruments to local contexts while preserving the ability to compare findings across settings.

  PublisherDOI

• Ethnographic methods: Training norms and practices and the future of American anthropology

  American Anthropologist · 2024-07-17 · 5 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract American anthropology is engaged in significant self‐reckonings that call for big changes to how anthropology is practiced. These include (1) recognizing and taking seriously the demands to decolonize the ways research is done, (2) addressing precarious employment in academic anthropology, and (3) creating a discipline better positioned to respond to urgent societal needs. A central role for ethnographic methods training is a thread that runs through each of these three reckonings. This article, written by a team of cultural, biocultural, and linguistic anthropologists, outlines key connections between ethnographic methods training and the challenges facing anthropology. We draw on insights from a large‐scale survey of American Anthropological Association members to examine current ethnographic methods capabilities and training practices. Study findings are presented and explored to answer three guiding questions: To what extent do our current anthropological practices in ethnographic methods training serve to advance or undermine current calls for disciplinary change? To what extent do instructors themselves identify disconnects between their own practices and the need for innovation? And, finally, what can be done, and at what scale, to leverage ethnographic methods training to meet calls for disciplinary change?

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Planning to Work as an Applied Medical Anthropologist? The Advantages of a Broad and Strategic Methodological Toolkit

  Practicing Anthropology · 2024-04-02

  article

  Applied medical anthropologists work in a variety of settings. This diversity of career paths is exciting as it allows anthropological theory and method to influence many spheres of society that impact people's everyday lived health. Success in this wide arena requires an inclusive and broad way of thinking about ethnography that incorporates multiple ways of thinking and the ability to employ a range of methodological tools. This short piece provides some guiding thoughts for developing a toolkit that is both broad and targeted over the course of your career.

  PublisherDOI

• Diet Quality of Children 6 to 24 Months Old in Low-Income Households in the US: Commendations and Concerns

  Current Developments in Nutrition · 2024-06-29

  articleOpen access

  Objectives: Infants (6-to-24 months) in low-income households are at increased risk for poor diet quality and obesity. The complementary feeding period, when solid foods are first introduced, is crucial for understanding and improving diet quality. The goal of this study was to examine the diet quality of infants in low-income households in Columbus, Ohio, USA. Methods: A demographic questionnaire and 24-hour dietary recalls were used to collect data (n=53). Dietary quality was determined with the Diet Quality Index Score (DQIS). Descriptive statistics were used to describe study participants. Mann-Whitney tests were used to compare DQIS between age groups. Differences in mean modified DQIS by demographics were assessed using linear regression. Results: Mean modified DQIS did not differ between age groups 6-to-11 (n=27) and 12-to-24 (n=26) months (p=0.89). In terms of food groups, we found a reduction in milk consumption (p=0.0002) but increase in protein consumption with age (p< 0.0001). Vegetable consumption tended to increase (p= 0.06) between the 6-11 month and the 12-24 month groups. Intake of sugar sweetened beverages was low in the 6-11 month and 12-24 month (5.00 ± 0.00) groups. Whole fruit consumption was slightly higher in the 6-11 month group (2.22 ± 1.06) compared to the 12-24 month group (2.12 ± 0.92), whereas 100% fruit juice (5.00 ± 0.00) and refined grain consumption (2.50 ± 0.00) were high at 6-11 months and remained high at 12-24 months (5.00 ± 0.00; 2.50 ± 0.00, respectively). Foods with added sugars (5.00 ± 0.00 vs. 4.81 ± 0.98) and salty snacks increased (4.72 ± 0.80 vs. 4.33 ± 1.33) with age. Conclusions: High intake of vegetable and low intake of sugar sweetened beverages was commendable. However, the high intake of 100% fruit juice, other added sugar, and salty snacks are causes for concern, as persistent intake of these foods can increase risk for early obesity. Nutrition education is needed at this critical period to improve diet quality and decrease obesity risk. Funding Sources: The Ohio State University, Initiative for Food and Agricultural Transformation.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Ethnographic Methods Training Norms and Practices and the Future of American Anthropology

  2023-08-04 · 4 citations

  preprintOpen access

  American Anthropology is engaged in significant self-reckonings that call for big changes to how anthropology is practiced. These include (1) recognizing and taking seriously the demands to decolonize the ways research is done; (2) addressing precarious employment in academic anthropology; and (3) creating a discipline better positioned to respond to urgent societal needs. A central role for ethnographic methods training is a thread that runs through each of these four reckonings. This paper, written by a team of cultural, biocultural, and linguistic anthropologists, outlines key connections between ethnographic methods training and the challenges facing anthropology. We draw on insights from a large-scale survey of American Anthropological Association members to examine current ethnographic methods capabilities and training practices. Study findings suggest that there is a strong desire among anthropologists for deeper training in foundational methods such as participant observation, entering the field, and ethnographic fieldwork writ-large, combined with training in critical and collaborative methods, as well as in quantitative methods. In addition, respondents report having competencies in ethnographic data collection methods, but a lack of training in methods for systematically analyzing the data they collect. We explore these and other findings to answer three guiding questions: To what extent do our current anthropological practices in ethnographic methods training serve to advance or undermine current calls for disciplinary change? To what extent do instructors themselves identify disconnects between their own practices and the need for innovation? And, finally, what can be done, and at what scale, to leverage ethnographic methods training to meet calls for disciplinary change?

  PublisherDOI

• Variation in Food and Nutritional Stability Among Amazonian Populations Living in a Context of Dramatic Seasonal Flooding

  Human Ecology · 2023-08-15 · 7 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Small bites: Biocultural dimensions of children's food and nutrition. By TinaMoffat, Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press. 2022. pp. 244. $65 (cloth)

  American Journal of Human Biology · 2023-10-03

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Darna L. Dufour

  18 shared

• Alexandra Brewis

  Arizona State University

  9 shared

• Amber Wutich

  Arizona State University

  9 shared

• Jiyoung Lee

  9 shared

• Seungjun Lee

  Sungkyunkwan University

  8 shared

• Mark Moritz

  The Ohio State University

  8 shared

• Rebecca Garabed

  The Ohio State University

  8 shared

• Alissa Ruth

  Arizona State University

  7 shared

Labs

• Human Biological Anthropology Laboratory (HBAL)PI