Carolina in the Carolines: A Survey of Patterns and Meanings of Smoking on a Micronesian Island

• Published in: Medical anthropology quarterly Vol. 19; no. 4; pp. 365 - 382
• Main Author: Marshall, Mac
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.12.2005; American Anthropological Association
• Subjects: Advertising as Topic; Alcohol; Alcoholic beverages; Anthropologists; Anthropology; Anti smoking movements; Atolls; Behavior; Chronic Disease; Chronic diseases; Cigarette industry; Cigarette smoking; Cigarettes; Consumption; Cross-Sectional Studies; Cultural attitudes; Cultural values; Data collection; Developing Countries; Diseases; Drugs; Environmental health; Epidemics; Health; Health services; health transition; Historical Development; Historical perspectives; History, 16th Century; History, 17th Century; History, 18th Century; History, 19th Century; History, 20th Century; History, 21st Century; Humans; Islands; LDCs; Life Style; Marketing; Meaning; Medical anthropology; Medicine; Micronesia; Micronesia - epidemiology; Micronesia - ethnology; Mortality; Polls & surveys; Public health; Sex Factors; Smoking; Smoking - epidemiology; Smoking - ethnology; Smoking - history; Social Behavior; Social behaviour; Social factors; Statistical analysis; Studies; Symbolism; syndemic; Tobacco; Tobacco industry; Tobacco use; Transnationalism; Womens health; Micronesia; South America; Namoluk Atoll; United States > US; China; Guam; Mexico
• ISSN: 0745-5194; 1548-1387
• DOI: 10.1525/maq.2005.19.4.365

Tobacco use-especially smoking industrially manufactured cigarettes-kills nearly 5 million people annually and is the leading preventable cause of death worldwide. Tobacco is a widely used global commodity embedded in cultural meanings, and its consumption involves a set of learned, patterned social behaviors. Seemingly, then, tobacco offers a most appealing anthropological research topic, yet its study has been relatively ignored by medical anthropologists when compared to research on alcoholic beverages and illegal drugs. To help fill this gap, this article sketches the historical background of tobacco in Micronesia, presents the results of a cross-sectional smoking survey from Namoluk Atoll, and describes contemporary smoking patterns and locally understood symbolic associations of tobacco. Intersections among history, gender, local meanings, the health transition, and the transnational marketing of tobacco are addressed, and cigarette smoking is seen as part of a new syndemic of chronic diseases in Micronesia.