Mac Marshall

The second fatal impact: cigarette smoking, chronic disease, and the epidemiological transition in Oceania.

The island countries of Oceania are now experiencing the epidemiological transition which has shifted patterns of morbidity and mortality from primarily infectious to mainly noncommunicable diseases. Prominent among these are many ailments known to be linked to or caused by tobacco smoking--especially to smoking of flue-cured, commercially made cigarettes. Cigarette manufacture by major tobacco transnational corporations began in the Pacific during the mid-1950s and production has grown rapidly since then. Cigarettes have been marketed aggressively, with a result that they have increasingly replaced the smoking of home-grown and twist tobacco. The history of tobacco production and marketing is sketched, and the literature on chronic diseases related to smoking is summarized for the Pacific region. The rise of anti-smoking movements in Oceania is then discussed, with particular attention to the PNG case during the 1980s.

Alcohol Consumption as a Public Health Problem in Papua New Guinea

A 2-year alcohol study was undertaken for the Papua New Guinea Institute of Applied Social and Economic Research (IASER). This paper reports project findings bearing on general public health related to alcohol consumption: (1) Much trauma is alcohol related-particularly trauma caused by motor vehicle accidents. (2) Continued ingestion of nonbeverage alcohols--principally methanol--exacts a significant public health toll. (3) Patterns of drinking and national trends in beverage alcohol consumption suggest that alcoholic cirrhosis and cancer of the upper respiratory and upper digestive tracts will contribute to increased mortality among Papua New Guineans.

Infant feeding and infant illness in a Micronesian village

The 49 infants born over a 2-year period in a single community in Truk, Micronesia, were studied in 1976 in order to determine the influence of current infant feeding practices on infant morbidity. Only 9 of the 49 infants were exclusively breastfed in their first year of life, and 20 were weaned completely from breast to bottle during their first 6 months. Very few mothers intended to breastfeed after the second year. 40 of the 49 babies received semisolid foods in the first 6 months. By early in the second year most children were eating normal adult diets. Most mothers were familiar with the procedures of proper bottle and formula care, but poor sanitary conditions, lack of refrigeration and inadequate supervision of older siblings made proper care difficult. Hospital records and parental reports indicate that almost all children in the sample experienced minor ailments at least occasionally in their first year. Although the sample size is too small for tests of significance, it is apparent that a much higher proportion of infants were seriously ill when exclusively bottle fed than when exclusively breast fed. All the children hospitalized within 8 weeks of birth had experienced either supplementary or complete bottlefeeding.

Breasts, bottles and babies: Historical changes in infant feeding practices in a Micronesian village

In an effort to study changes in modes of infant feeding over time, the mothers of 375 children born in a Micronesian village during the past 50 years were interviewed regarding their infant feeding practices. The 83 women residents in Peniyesene village in March 1976, who had borne children while residing on Moen Island, were interviewed in their homes. During the 1945-1975 period, use of commercial formula increased steadily, while breastfeeding declined, age at weaning from breast decreased, and consumption of milk by 1-2 year-olds increased. In the 1970s these trends accelerated. Prior to 1940 the use of powdered or evaporated milk was introduced into the Truk District. Educational level and employment history of the mother were significantly associated with bottlefeeding. Convenience was the most commonly reported reason for bottlefeeding. The course of infant feeding practices in the village appeared to have been affected by historical factors which are reviewed.

Tobacco prevention in the Federated States of Micronesia

The impact of tobacco-related illnesses in the Federal States of Micronesia (FSM) is discussed and documented for the 1970-95 period using national government statistics and gleanings from the research literature. Based upon international data concerning tobacco-related morbidity and mortality it is estimated that 15% of 1993 FSM mortality was smoking-related and that tobacco use contributes heavily to the non-communicable diseases that are the leading causes of death there. Sources and brands of cigarettes sold in the four FSM states are noted, as is the fact that cigarettes ranked among the top five import commodities in dollar value in the mid-1980s and early 1990s. Trend data are provided on cigarette imports from 1984 to 1993, during which time FSM citizens spent over US

Making sense of Micronesia: The logic of Pacific Island culture, by Francis X. Hezel

25.5 m on this legal drug. Brand-price survey data of cigarettes and selected foodstuffs are presented as part of a discussion of the economic opportunity costs of smoking. Tax revenues from cigarettes are recorded, as are the steps toward smoking prevention and tobacco control taken by the FSM government. The article concludes with suggestions for additional controls that might be implemented.

Alcohol and Ethnography: A Case of Problem Deflation? [and Comments and Reply]

Haney also examines the political forces that have shaped archives in West Africa, and Jennifer Bakorek also examines ‘popular’ traces overlapping nature of official and ‘popular’ photography in late colonial Senegal. Contributors historicise their analyses with admirable specificity, reviewing images in the context of new technologies and shifting scholarly debates. Section three, The social life of photographs extends many of these themes, exploring the ways that photos work as agents within networks of social practices and exchange. Drawing on recent theorisation of the photo as object, and attending to its materialities, these chapters move away from analysis of the images’ meaning or content to address how they are used. Vokes’ own chapter is concerned to complicate the relationship between official and popular forms of photography, arguing that representation is less important as a way of understanding photos in southwest Uganda than the ways that they have come to be seen as an extension of the body —and that their material qualities have shaped their distinctive local uses and meanings. Behrend also discusses how making and distributing photos during weddings along the Kenyan coast has become standard— although for some Muslim women so has avoidance of the camera and/or iconoclasm. Corinne Kratz examines forms of photographic display among the Okiek and what they reveal about changing notions of personhood, identity, and social relations. This excellent collection revises our understanding of photography and anthropology outside as well as within Africa, with implications for several interpretative orthodoxies— such as the disappearance of the medium from anthropology after the 1920s, simple distinctions between categories and genres of production and use, and especially the role of the African subjects themselves, who can be shown to have engaged with and shaped photography in profound and important ways. Starting in the early 1990s, the first generation of research regarding photography and anthropology was perhaps characterised by a primary interest in the white photographer and what photos reveal of Western views. This book effectively shifts this interpretive stance, and indeed many other supposed axioms of analysis, to attend to a much richer field of power, movement, and sociality across Africa as understood through themediumof photography. The collection is an important and nuanced contribution that will be of wide interest to Africanists, and scholars concerned with photography, imperialism and postcolonialism.