‘A matter of commonsense’: the Coventry poliomyelitis epidemic 1957 and the British public

In 1956, the British Ministry of Health instituted a vaccination programme against poliomyelitis, but run into myriad supply and administrative issues. When Coventry experienced an epidemic in 1957, it came to symbolise these problems. Throughout, it was claimed that the government lacked ‘common sense’. This article explores how and why ‘common sense’ was used as a rhetorical weapon in the debates over policy at the local and national level. While those claiming ‘common sense’ were often at odds with medical and administrative authorities, the arguments were often informed by deeply held beliefs about vaccination and disease.     

Femininities on transnational journeys and sexual health risk: experiences of Chinese immigrant women in Canada

Negotiations at work in a globalising China in regard to femininity, sexuality, and family relationships have been well documented from the 1990s. Nonetheless less is known about them in a transnational context, and femininities are far less explored than masculinities. Drawing on interview data from a larger research study of transnationalism and gendered HIV vulnerability, this article investigates the intersection of femininity, sexuality and sexual health risk through Chinese immigrant women’s narratives about their experiences in Canada. It examines to what extent these intimate negotiations within China are re-enacted through Chinese immigrant women’s transnational experiences in Canada. These women live ‘in-between’ China and Canada in terms of identity, space and time with their cross-cultural connections unveiling both virtual and actual relations. Gender norms and roles, intimate and sexual experience, and family relations are realigned in the transnational lives of these women and are impacted by both their home and host societies, as well as their past and present experience in China. Used in the article as a concept and an analytical lens, gender is acknowledged as a key organising principle in post-immigration individual and social experience.     

The Non‐Adult Cohort from Le Morne Cemetery,Mauritius: A Snap Shot of Early Life and Death after Abolition

The cemetery of Le Morne in Mauritius dates from the 1830s and is thought to contain the remains of slaves, freed slaves or potentially free Madagascans, which in itself has economic and social implications and makes the cemetery all the more intriguing. During 2010, excavations recovered the remains of 11 individuals, of which six were children. Although a small sample, the burials of the non‐adults show several interesting features. Two neonates were buried contemporaneously and may have been twins, while a late term foetus in a grave with a young woman may represent an incident of coffin birth. This sample has the potential to cast light on the burial practices of the slave/ex‐slave community in Mauritius, about which little is currently known. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cultural Worldview and Preference for Childhood Vaccination Policy

In the face of the reemerging threat of preventable diseases and the simultaneous vaccine risk controversy, what explains variations in Americans’ policy preferences regarding childhood vaccinations? Using original data from a recent nationwide Internet survey of 1,213 American adults, this research seeks to explain differing public opinions on childhood vaccination policies and related issues of governance. As Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky's grid‐group cultural theory of policy preference formation suggests, cultural biases have a significant impact on the formation of preferences toward various vaccination policies. Hierarchs are in support of mandatory vaccination, oppose religious and philosophical exemption, and believe the government should preside over vaccination‐related decisions. Fatalists strike a bold contrast in their opposition to mandatory vaccination policy and support for religious and philosophical exemptions and the role of parents in deciding on vaccinations. Falling between hierarchs and fatalists, egalitarian support for vaccinations is stronger than individualists‘.     

Diet,nutritional status and oral health in hunter‐gatherers from the central‐northern coast of Patagonia and the Chubut river lower valley,Argentina

Archaeological research in central‐northern Patagonia (Atlantic coast and lower the valley of Chubut river) showed that this area was used since at least the Middle Holocene. Stable isotope analyses (¹³C and ¹⁵N) of human bone samples indicate that hunter‐gatherers living in that area had a terrestrial‐marine diet including guanaco meat, land plants, mollusks and pinnipeds. Despite this general trend, intersite variability and changes through time were noted, especially after the late Holocene. These results have been reinforced by archaeofaunal, technological and bioarchaeological records. In this paper, three hypotheses are examined: (a) the diet of these populations was complete and rich enough to ensure good health status and avoid nutritional deficiencies; (b) carbohydrate consumption increased progressively after 1000 BP, when pottery technology was adopted and (c) this kind of mixed diet would have been qualitatively more nutritious than that of other populations of the region, which would have resulted in better nutritional and healthy conditions. These three hypotheses are compared with dental results obtained from 563 permanent teeth from 45 individuals (34 adults and 11 juveniles from both sexes), rescued from burial sites. Indicators of oral health were assessed through the observation of caries, abscesses, wear, pulpar cavity exposure and ante mortem loss. Features of nutritional status such as enamel hypoplasia, porotic hyperostosis and cribra orbitalia were also examined. Given the availability of direct radiocarbon dating for most of the sample, three temporal series were determined: ‘Before 1000 BP’, ‘1000–5000 BP’ and ‘Post‐contact’. No evidence of alimentary stress or iron deficiency was found in individuals from the three series, which accounts for healthy and good nutritional life conditions. After 1000 BP, the results show a progressive increase in the caries percentage and a decrease in abscesses, dental wear and ante mortem losses frequency. This is possibly related to more consumption of processed foods in the last 1000 years. These results were compared with similar studies based on samples from different environments and latitudes of Patagonia. Evidence suggests that mixed diets (marine‐terrestrial) would have been more appropriate and nutritionally complete than exclusively marine or terrestrial diets. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

‘Tomorrow comes when tomorrow comes’: Managing Aboriginal Health within an Ontology of Life‐as‐Contingent

ABSTRACT The authors have worked in Australian Aboriginal communities within the Wiradjuri area of central‐western New South Wales. Examining what appear to be distinctive Aboriginal approaches to time, we argue that these stem not from a different notion of time as such but, rather, from the relationship between the social and the self which places a distinctive value on the use and management of time. One way to access the dynamic between time and self is to realise that life is understood as fluid and contingent rather than predictable. This continually subverts the idea that time is measurable and controllable; that life is lived within domesticated sedentary space; and that planning ahead and self‐discipline are virtues. Yet these are notions central to practices associated with contemporary health care. A majority of health care providers, whether Aboriginal or not, are trained in the Australian mainstream health system and may consequently underestimate the implications of different ways in which a person acts on the temporal/spatial dimensions of her life, and how this influences ways in which she manages time in relation to her health and well‐being. Temporal concepts, such as ‘planning’, ‘discipline’, ‘future’, ‘boredom’, or ‘patience’, as well as that of the ‘long‐term’ with regard to managing illness or money, interact with the ways in which Aboriginal people experience themselves as ill or in need of health care, influencing how they act on medical advice. We argue that the key to understanding the use of time lies not in the concept of time per se but in what is involved in developing a responsive social self when the time/space dimensions of the day to day are informed by a fluid and thus contingent ontology of that day to day.     

Health centre visits among the elderly with chronic ailments: Evidence from the Kanchanaburi Demographic Surveillance System, 2004, Thailand

This study deployed statistical and spatial (GIS) analyses to test the effects of geographic, demographic and occupational factors in predicting health centre visits among the elderly (≥60 years) with chronic ailments in Kanchanaburi Province, western Thailand. Datasets from the Kanchanaburi Demographic Surveillance System (2004 baseline survey and a 2006 project follow-up) comprised five land-use landscape and occupational strata: urban/semi-urban (industrial), rice field, plantation crop, upland and mixed economy. Travel distance to the nearest health centre was calculated following transportation routes and the GPS coordinates of individual home locations, and the number of healthcare visits under the national free universal coverage (UC) scheme reported for the previous year was used as a dependent variable in regressions. Broadly, the study found that distance was not a significant predictor of the rate of elderly health centres visits for those with co-residing spouses and/or adult children (77% of sample), and for the elderly still working (48% of the sample) who were the least likely to access healthcare. Owning motorised vehicles did not encourage visits, which also varied by land-use and occupational strata.     

Regulating Scientific Diving and Underwater Archaeology: legal and historical considerations

The regulation of scientific and archaeological diving is complex but it is essential that underwater archaeologists are familiar with the requirements placed on them by legal systems. This paper outlines the history and development of current legal systems in four jurisdictions: the UK, USA, EU and Australia. This historical and legal approach informs key discussions facing maritime archaeologists; reference is made to training requirements, safety records and the question of who should be allowed to participate and who should be excluded from archaeological diving.     

Connecting global health interventions and lived experiences: suspending ‘normality’ at funerals in rural Tanzania

In this paper, we use the funeral space and its liminal nature as a milieu for exploring how a ‘modern’ health intervention, the mosquito bednet, is negotiated by its recipients in relation to its (non)-usage in such spaces. With a focus on sleeping arrangements at funerals and drawing on empirical data from participants living in rural southern Tanzania, we discuss how the bednet is linked to the notion of being unsympathetic to the death. Viewed as a symbol of modernity and a reflection of wealth and individual pride, the bednet becomes physically and symbolically inappropriate in the more sacred, ‘in-between’ site of the funeral. We also uncover how risk perceptions regarding malaria transmission are re-cast in funeral spaces, with socio-cultural practices and health-related behaviours being simultaneously ‘risky’ for individual mourners and reinforcing in terms of group social cohesion. As individual mourners' concerns about malaria risks are suspended, notions of pain and discomfort come to the fore as part of the mourning process and respect for the deceased.     

The Changing Health Care Behaviour of the Hmong Refugee Population in Sydney

Health care behaviour of Hmong refugees in Sydney was investigated after research in the United States had shown that, within the Southeast Asian refugee community in that country, Hmong refugees not only had the lowest rates of use of Western medicine but also were the most likely to assess their quality of health as only fair ( Brainard and Zaharlick, 1989 , 849). In contrast, this study found that the Sydney Hmong generally used Western medicine as a system of first choice. At the same time, most continued to use traditional medicines, albeit in a modified form. Minimal costs, freedom to choose their own doctor and appropriate, long term health education were the most important factors in Hmong using Western medicine in Sydney. Other contributing factors included the structure and size of the community, the presence of a long‐term Hmong resident in Sydney upon arrival and familiarity with Western medicine. Thus, the Sydney Hmong community was able to maintain a reasonable quality of health at an affordable price. An unexpected finding was the improved social, economic and health status of Hmong women. Such differentiated results are a powerful argument for not looking at refugees as a homogenous group, even when investigating a single, national, ethnic or cultural group. This study highlighted both the multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary nature of health care behaviour and the contribution that a small in‐depth case study can make to health and migrant policy.