Title Drinking smoke : the tobacco syndemic in Oceania / Mac Marshall

Published Honolulu : University of Hawaii Press, [2013]

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Description 1 online resource (xix, 292 pages) : illustrations Contents Introduction and historical background -- Tobacco as a comestible -- Pipe dreams -- Tobacco in Indigenous trade -- Tobacco as an object of exchange between islanders and foreigners -- From tobacco trade to tobacco production -- Death, taxes, and tobacco control -- Aotearoa : "land of the long white smoke cloud" : Pacific smoke inhalation case study number 1 -- U.S. associated Micronesia : Pacific smoke inhalation case study number 2 -- Native Hawaiians : kānaka maoli : Pacific smoke inhalation case study number 3 -- Tobaccosis : the tobacco syndemic Summary Tobacco kills 5 million people every year - and that number is expected to double by the year 2020. Despite its enormous toll on human health, tobacco has been largely neglected by anthropologists. This book combines an exhaustive search of historical materials on the introduction and spread of tobacco in the Pacific with extensive anthropological accounts of the ways Islanders have incorporated this substance into their lives. The author uses a relatively new concept called a syndemic - the synergistic interaction of two or more afflictions contributing to a greater burden of disease in a population - to focus at once on the health of a community, political and economic structures, and the wider physical and social environment to ultimately provide an in-depth analysis of smoking's negative health impact in Oceania. In this book, the idea of a syndemic is applied to the current health crisis in the Pacific, where the number of deaths from coronary heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) continues to rise. The case is made that smoking tobacco in the form of industrially manufactured cigarettes is the keystone of the contemporary syndemic in Oceania. The author shows how tobacco consumption (particularly cigarette smoking after World War II) has become the central interstitial element of a syndemic that produces most of the morbidity and mortality Pacific Islanders suffer. This syndemic is made up of a bundle of diseases and conditions, a set of historical circumstances and events, and social and health inequities most easily summed up as "poverty." He calls this the tobacco syndemic and argues that smoking is the crucial behavior - the "glue"--Holding all of these diseases and conditions together. This book offers an examination of the damaging tobacco syndemic in a specific world region, and will be of interest to scholars and students of anthropology, Pacific studies, history, and economic globalization, as well as for public health practitioners and those working in allied health fields. More broadly, the book will appeal to anyone concerned with disease interaction, the social context of disease production, and the full health consequences of the global promotional efforts of Big Tobacco Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 225-284) and index Notes In English Print version record Subject Tobacco use -- Health aspects -- Oceania Tobacco use -- Oceania Tobacco industry. Tobacco Use -- ethnology Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander Tobacco Industry POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Public Policy -- Social Security. POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Public Policy -- Social Services & Welfare. MEDICAL -- Public Health. Tobacco industry Tobacco use Tobacco use -- Health aspects Tabak Verbrauch Rauchen Gesundheitsschaden SUBJECT Oceania -- epidemiology Subject Oceania Ozeanien Form Electronic book ISBN 9780824837969 0824837967 0824836855 9780824836856 9780824871123 082487112X

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