Anthropology Corner: Health and Wellbeing

So a while ago, actually a really long time ago now, I wrote about some of my work with the Agta. Observing children is only one part of my research, the rest of the time I run around after the same children attempting to get anthropometric data.  

Anthropometrics simply refers to the measuring of people (thanks Wikipedia) and basically means that on three different occasions now I measured height, weight and skin-fold thickness for all the children and adults we meet.  For children, this is particularly important as a measure of their growth and development. Skin-fold thickness is also a great measure of fatness and malnutrition. With this data, we are able to understand the physical status of the population, compare this to other populations worldwide and to try and understand the causes of any abnormalities. 

Anthropometry has been used by biological anthropologists for many years as it is easy to conduct in different field situations. Even so, it is often challenging trying to find a good spot you can be sheltered from the burning sun or pouring rain which also contains a flat, hard surface and big enough to move people around in. Actually, I don't think we have ever managed to find all three, and often we send kids running all over the shop trying to find big pieces of wood (or rice grinders, benches, cutting boards...when needs must!) for the weight scale.   

But health is composed of main more things than simple height and weight. With an individual's anthropometrics it might be clear that they are malnourished and stunted but it is not clear why. This might be because they simply are not eating enough, or they have a parasitic infection (basically intestinal worms) or a bacterial infection such as TB.  So even with all the limitations caused by a lack of infrastructure, we are currently working on conducting blood, sputum and even stool tests to try and really understand the Agta's health. Working with the local medical services we are helping to screen individuals with some key diseases, primarily TB, worms and anemia, and facilitating their access to treatment.  

This is something I am really happy to be involved in, as for me it's important to directly help the population which does so much for me (I mean where would my Ph.D. be without them!). Hunter-gatherers have been a quintessential component in the development of Anthropology. However, there are now less than 50 hunter-gatherer groups remaining worldwide, and those which have survived are often referred to as fourth-world peoples: they lack socio-political and economic representation in developing nations and are increasingly marginalised in terms of access to resources and health care.  So to help change this, I am more than happy to be kicked by the occasional child (it's OK they forgive me again once the lollipops come out!).

That's all folks,

Wasabi