Dr. Allysha P Winburn

This study provides a proof-of-concept for incorporating evolutionary theory into forensic anthropology practice. Specifically, we test whether innominate measurements used in the DSP 2 sex-estimation method reflect known patterns of morphological integration and whether variable redundancy can be reduced without compromising classification accuracy.
Innominate measurements were obtained from published datasets totaling 3045 individuals. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to identify clusters of measurements. Relative standard deviation of eigenvalues was used to assess the degree of morphological integration. Posterior probabilities of sex classification were computed using one variable per cluster (cluster-based approach) and compared to a randomly selected four-variable approach, consistent with the minimum recommended by the original study. Simulations were used to generate posterior distributions of accuracy and the percentage of samples reaching a decision threshold.
Three distinct clusters of innominate measurements were identified, broadly corresponding to known modules of the innominate. The degree of morphological integration was higher within clusters than in the full measurement set or nonintegrated matrices. The cluster-based classification approach showed comparable accuracy (mean = 96.38%) to the randomized approach (mean = 95.64%) despite using only three variables. While fewer individuals were assigned a sex under the cluster-based method, the results demonstrated higher consistency.
Results suggest that accounting for morphological integration can streamline sex estimation by reducing variable redundancy without compromising accuracy. This study demonstrates how evolutionary principles can improve the theoretical foundation of forensic anthropology methods and offers a framework for future method development grounded in evolutionary theory.

Biological profile methodology, terminology, and reporting in forensic anthropology have developed under the understanding of sex as a binary, and the field has avoided gender in research and practice. Yet this current perspective does not adequately address challenges specific to the identification of transgender and gender-diverse (TGD) individuals where the results of a biological profile analysis of skeletal morphology may not properly reflect an individual's identity in life, thereby hindering identification efforts when the two conflict. The advancement of modern gender-affirming medical care for TGD individuals that may impact skeletal morphology and legal and social marginalization in both life and death further confound this issue. Here, we situate the role of the forensic anthropologist as an advocate for the deceased in promoting practices reflective of diverse gender identities and propose a path toward inclusive deathcare practices. Finally, we highlight TGD-inclusive casework practices that can be further developed by the incorporation of a more nuanced understanding of sex and gender into current methodology, the use of more diverse identity terminology, and the inclusion of TGD individuals in research development.

Older adults living in subsidized senior housing tend to be at risk for poor psychological well-being related to their advanced age and low income. This study aims to explore multilevel factors affecting perceived quality of life (QoL) among non-urban subsidized senior housing residents and to compare these factors between rural and suburban communities. Community/residential-level data were collected from the interviews with residential service coordinators (RSC) of five subsidized senior housing communities in the New England region: two rural and three suburban communities. Individual- and interpersonal-level data came from the survey with 82 residents. A mixed-methods approach was utilized. We used thematic content analyses for the interview data and multivariate ordered logit regression for the survey data. Our results showed that rural residence was positively associated with QoL (OR = 4.913, p<.01) even after controlling for all the individual-, interpersonal-, and community/residential-level factors. From RSCs’ perspectives, four main themes emerged, which could potentially contribute to better QoL among senior housing residents: access to services, social spaces for residents, inequitable connections to community resources, and social engagements among senior housing residents and with RSCs. Our findings contribute to the development of strategies to improve QoL among older adults living in rural/non-metropolitan subsidized senior housing.

Diverse bodies of theory inform forensic anthropology [1,2] in addition to the evolutionary frameworks or biological paradigms most often invoked [3]. Despite this theoretical depth, a vast array of anthropological theory remains to be fully examined by forensic anthropologists. This can be explained, in part, by the siloing not only of subdisciplines, but also of interest areas within a subdiscipline, leading some to view even closely aligned specialties such as forensic anthropology and bioarchaeology as theoretically isolated from one another [[4], [5], [6]]. Given the burgeoning conversations in the field on ethical practice, strengthening standards, expanding the scope of forensic work, relevance of forensic practice in relation to broader socio-cultural issues, and holistic approaches to forensic anthropology [[6], [7], [8], [9]], we need to embrace and incorporate anthropological theories that have the potential to inform or transform these issues. Among these discussions, several studies have underscored structural violence and structural vulnerability theories as they apply in forensic anthropology [[10], [11], [12], [13]]. Relatedly, social and structural determinants of health have emerged as lenses through which we can consider forensic anthropological practice [13]. This special issue resides at the intersection of these theories, wherein contributors were asked to broadly apply these frameworks to forensic anthropology.

Forensic anthropologists engage with numerous and diverse stakeholders in their casework. Regarding the recovery of human remains, these stakeholders may be interested in quantifying or qualifying the amount of remains recovered. How forensic anthropologists respond to such questions, whether verbally or in written reporting, has the potential to impact the trajectory of a case. However, communications about skeletal completeness are rarely discussed within the field. Current data-collection procedures recommend the use of inventories. This approach may be less feasible for complicated assemblages involving commingling or high degrees of fragmentation. Numerous methods exist to quantify the amount of skeletal remains present in complex or larger assemblages, but it remains unclear to what extent forensic anthropologists utilize these methods and whether factors like degree of expertise influence analysts' ability to report skeletal completeness consistently and precisely. A study was designed to examine differences between public and professional perceptions of skeletal completeness, presenting images of incomplete bones and skeletal remains. Survey participants were asked to assess the completeness of the remains in each image. Few patterns were observed regarding photographs of skeletal assemblages, but distinct differences were observed among individual bones between respondents with different degrees of expertise. These responses reflect potentially unexamined assumptions underlying assessments of incomplete bones and skeletal assemblages. This highlights the necessity of standardizing how we report estimates of completeness within the forensic anthropology community and how we discuss these results with external stakeholders. Completeness estimates must be either removed from reports and bench notes or annotated and cited clearly, as is standard with other aspects of forensic anthropological analysis. Several methods are summarized, with recommendations for integrating them into casework.

Scholarship of forensic sciences has shown politicalization of human remains and potential biases in criminal investigations. Specifically, concerns have been raised regarding how forensic anthropology analysis and documentation may hinder identification processes or obfuscate other data. As part of this scholarship, some have suggested that forensic anthropologists expand their reporting to include broader public health and safety information as well as reconsider who should be included in reports of anthropological findings. In response to these burgeoning discussions, this piece provides examples of ways anthropologists may formulate reports that capture evidence of marginalization or structural vulnerability. Documentation of findings can occur in myriad formats, including, but not limited to, individual case reports, reports on population analyses from cases, collaborative end-of-year reporting conducted with other medicolegal professionals, and collaborative databasing. This piece provides various templates and suggestions for reporting this kind of data while encouraging further discussion on related merits and concerns.

Forensic anthropology has recently and publicly grappled with fundamental disciplinary issues-including estimating population affinity, the pursuit of objectivity, and the role of bias in medicolegal contexts-all of which has left the subdiscipline in a state of seeming fracture, with many practitioners worried about its future. Given these concerns, we wondered to what degree polarization exists, if at all, and along what lines. Using the method of cultural consensus analysis, we asked forensic anthropologists: What makes a "good" forensic anthropologist? Our findings suggest that contrary to widespread concern, broad agreement (consensus) exists over the training, experiences, perspectives, and practices forensic anthropologists (n = 103) identified as important for being "good" at what they do. A few points of disagreement emerged-particularly over the issue of neutrality-which dominated the narrative feedback we received. The fault lines of this debate primarily fell along generational lines, with those having earned their degrees earlier believing more strongly in neutrality. This pattern largely maps onto broader (and somewhat routine) disciplinary debates and trends away from positivism, with younger anthropologists more focused on the larger goal of "decolonizing US anthropology" and attending to the antiracist work that figures prominently in anthropology today.

In societies where resources are unequally distributed, structural inequities can be physically embodied over lifetimes. Lived experiences including racism, sexism, classism, and poverty can lead to chronic stress that prematurely ages body systems. This study tests the hypothesis that members of structurally vulnerable groups will exhibit premature aging in the form of antemortem tooth loss (AMTL). Analyzing Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) and white skeletal donors from the University of Tennessee, we predict that individuals from structurally vulnerable groups will exhibit more AMTL than individuals with more social privilege. We find some evidence for increased AMTL in BIPOC individuals, but significantly more AMTL in low-socioeconomic-status white individuals than either BIPOC or high-SES white individuals. We maintain that high rates of AMTL provide evidence of embodied consequences of social policies and utilize the violence continuum to theorize the ways in which poverty and inequity are normalized in U.S. society.

In forensic anthropology, and biological anthropology more broadly, age estimation is a crucial element of the biological profile. The development of osteoarthritis (OA) is correlated with age and, in 2019, Winburn and Stock published a method of estimating age in a sample of 408 white American individuals using OA presence/absence. The current study expanded the original study by testing its accuracy on a more diverse sample, including black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC). This served to test whether embodied inequity from lived experiences may preclude the ability of the OA presence/absence method to estimate age at death. This study’s results demonstrated both that the original methodology was validated, and that the approach was accurate at estimating the age of death of BIPOC individuals. Furthermore, this study revealed that the hip and shoulder were highly consistent and reliable and are recommended for use as the strongest indicators of age at death, while the TMJ and ankle performed poorly and should not be used for age estimation.

The medicolegal death investigation process in the United States, historically focused on personal identification and determination of cause and manner of death, has evolved in recent decades to include space for advocacy centered around public health. Particularly, in the domain of forensic anthropology, practitioners have begun to incorporate a structural vulnerability perspective on human anatomical variation, with the goals of articulating the social determinants of ill health and early death and ultimately influencing public policy. This perspective has explanatory power far beyond the anthropological sphere. In this piece, we argue that biological and contextual indicators of structural vulnerability can be incorporated into medicolegal reporting with potentially powerful impacts on policy. We apply theoretical frameworks from medical anthropology, public health, and social epidemiology to the context of medical examiner casework, highlighting the recently proposed Structural Vulnerability Profile developed and explored in other articles in this special issue. We argue that: 1. Medicolegal case reporting provides a valuable opportunity to record a faithful accounting of structural inequities in the annals of death investigation, and 2. Existing reporting infrastructure could, with limited modifications, provide a powerful opportunity to inform State and Federal policy with medicolegal data, presented within a structural vulnerability framework.
•Traditional forensic anthropology praxis emphasizes the biological profile and evidence informing cause and manner of death.•The SVP expands standard praxis to include observations of marginalization experienced across the decedent's life.•Incorporation of the SVP into existing medicolegal infrastructure enables faithful reporting of structural inequities.•Reporting the SVP can inform public health initiatives and State and Federal policy to stop preventable suffering and death.•Forensic experts involved in medicolegal death investigation can play an additional, public health-focused role.