Displaying publications 21 - 40 of 52 in total

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  1. Problems and potential of researching epidemiological transition: examples from Southeast Asia
    Phillips DR
    Soc Sci Med, 1991;33(4):395-404.
    PMID: 1948152
    The concept of epidemiological transition is now quite widely recognized, if not so widely accepted. The transition appears to progress at varying speeds and to different extents spatially; it seems that there can be considerable international, regional and local variations in its progress. The paper examines this contention in the case of a number of countries in Southeast Asia, principally Hong Kong, Malaysia and Thailand. Drawing on evidence from this region, the paper highlights the importance when researching epidemiological transition of the time period under consideration; socio-cultural variations; the nature and quality of data, and spatial scale. It makes some suggestions as to the potential of the concept of epidemiological transition in health care planning and development studies.
  2. Longhouse dwelling, social contact and the prevalence of leprosy and tuberculosis among native tribes of Sarawak
    Chen PCY
    Soc Sci Med, 1988;26(10):1073-7.
    PMID: 3393924 DOI: 10.1016/0277-9536(88)90225-0
    In Sarawak, some tribes stay in communal longhouses whilst others live in villages of single dwellings. The present study looks into the question of whether there is an association between the prevalence of leprosy and tuberculosis with the quantum of social contact that occurs in these two types of settlement patterns. It was found that the prevalence of leprosy and tuberculosis is significantly higher among longhouse dwellers compared with single house dwellers. It was also noted that social groups tended to be larger and to persist for much longer among longhouse dwellers than among those in single dwellings. This lends support to the evidence that social contact in longhouses is more extensive and contributes towards a higher prevalence of leprosy and tuberculosis.
  3. Historical review of the changing pattern of infant feeding in developing countries: the case of Malaysia, the Caribbean, Nigeria and Zaire
    King J, Ashworth A
    Soc Sci Med, 1987;25(12):1307-20.
    PMID: 3324358 DOI: 10.1016/0277-9536(87)90129-8
    Prolonged lactation and early supplementation have been traditional practices among low-income mothers in Malaysia, the Caribbean, Nigeria and Zaire. Early supplementation is still the norm but there have been some substantial changes in the types of supplement offered. Thus, except in Zaire, there is now widespread use of processed milks as supplements for very young infants. The use of processed milks began in the 1920s in Malaysia and the Caribbean, but not until the 1960s in Nigeria. Processed milks are, as yet, rarely used in Zaire. The use of processed milks has not, however, led to the abandonment of traditional paps. The latter are still given as supplements to young infants in Nigeria and to older infants in Malaysia and the Caribbean. Breast-feeding duration has declined in Malaysia and the Caribbean although initiation is almost universal. In Nigeria and Zaire most low-income mothers continue to breast-feed for at least 12 months. The changes in the types of supplements used and in breast-feeding duration are analogous to the changes observed in industrialised countries from the mid-19th century, and many of the associated factors are similar: urbanisation; female participation in the labour force; increased availability of processed milks and their promotion both by companies and the health sector; and the regimentation of breast-feeding. This review highlights the negative role played by the health sector in the past, and discusses its future role in promoting and supporting breast-feeding.
  4. The ambiguity of symbols in the structure of healing
    Laderman C
    Soc Sci Med, 1987;24(4):293-301.
    PMID: 2436303 DOI: 10.1016/0277-9536(87)90148-1
    In his article, 'The Effectiveness of Symbols,' Lévi-Strauss contends that the details of a Cuna birth incantation evoke specific physiological responses from parturient women, aiding them through difficult labors. His argument, which analyzes the incantation as a text divorced from its social setting, has drawn criticism from students of Cuna society on a number of substantive points, primarily centering around the difficulties that the special linguistic form of ritual language would present to a non-adept. If the patient lacks a thorough comprehension of the mythic details, how can the incantation change her physiological processes? In an attempt to evaluate the effect of myth upon a woman in labor, this article calls upon Cuna and Malay ethnographic data, and presents a Malay birth incantation as interpreted by the ritual practitioner who recited it. Following a discussion of the non-semantic aspects of the incantation and the extent to which the patient shares the interpretation of the healer in both the Malay and Cuna societies, recent biomedical studies are cited in support of hypotheses concerning the physiological and biochemical effects of myth in the management of childbirth.
  5. Food ideology and eating behavior: contributions from Malay studies
    Laderman C
    Soc Sci Med, 1984;19(5):547-59.
    PMID: 6484640 DOI: 10.1016/0277-9536(84)90050-9
    A study of food ideology and eating behavior in a Malay village demonstrates that the relationship between belief and action is complex and not always predictable. Over-reliance upon stated beliefs, and generalizations derived from particular ecological settings, have influenced investigators into making universal and logical statements about Malay eating behavior and its health consequences--a logic which, however, does not always jibe with reality. Food ideology, like any other portion of a belief system, is subject to innovation, interpretation and rationalization, and contains within it 'rules to break rules' which assure the continued integrity of the symbolic system by patterning what might otherwise be seen as rifts in its fabric. An understanding of eating behavior must be based both on a knowledge of the subsidiary, as well as primary, clauses of food ideology, and on direct observation of the behaviors elicited by these beliefs and modified by the setting, the situation and the individual.
  6. The pragmatics of aesthetics: the performance of healing among Senoi Temiar
    Roseman M
    Soc Sci Med, 1988;27(8):811-8.
    PMID: 2465577 DOI: 10.1016/0277-9536(88)90233-X
    Indigenous healers in many societies use patterned sounds, movements, colors, shapes, and odors as therapeutic techniques; yet medical anthropology remains curiously inattentive to the aesthetics of healing rituals. Based on research among Senoi Temiar of Peninsular Malaysia, I propose an approach to the therapeutic efficacy of these symbolic forms. The music of Temiar healing ceremonies is examined from three perspectives: the formal musical structures, the indigenous theories that inform those structures, and the strategies through which they are performed and experienced by participants. Temiar healing performances present a moment of articulation between two domains of knowledge and action: musical composition, performance, and affect, on the one hand, and indigenous cosmology, illness etiology, and the pathogenicity of emotions, on the other. Songs of Temiar spirit-mediums cross-cut these two domains, and demonstrate the pragmatics of aesthetics.
  7. Salted fish and nasopharyngeal carcinoma in Malaysia
    Armstrong RW, Eng AC
    Soc Sci Med, 1983;17(20):1559-67.
    PMID: 6635717 DOI: 10.1016/0277-9536(83)90100-4
    The evidence for a hypothesis that eating salted fish is associated with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is reviewed. The hypothesis was tested among Malaysian Chinese using a matched case-control design. The kinds of salted fish and patterns of use were also investigated in a control group comprising 100 Chinese, 50 Malay and 50 Indian households. During 1980, in Selangor, Malaysia, interviews with 100 Chinese cases of NPC and 100 non-disease controls indicated that salted fish consumption during childhood was a significant risk (relative risk = 3.0, P = 0.04), with an elevated risk for daily as opposed to less frequent consumption. Salted fish consumption during adolescence was a less significant risk, and current consumption not at all. There were 19 kinds of fishes reported as being eaten as salted fish by the 200 control households. There were marked differences between ethnic groups in preference for different kinds: Chinese preferred red snapper (74% of households), Malay jewfish (54%) and Indian red snapper (28%). Salted fish was hardly ever eaten daily by any household; weekly was a moderate frequency in all ethnic groups; less than weekly most common. There were no statistically significant differences between Chinese NPC case and non-disease control participants in kind of salted fish eaten. Results were the same when the data were analyzed by sex, subethnic group and income.
  8. Destructive heat and cooling prayer: Malay humoralism in pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period
    Laderman C
    Soc Sci Med, 1987;25(4):357-65.
    PMID: 3686085 DOI: 10.1016/0277-9536(87)90274-7
    Malaya, an ancient crossroads of trade, was the recipient of Chinese and Ayurvedic humoral ideas and, later, those of medieval Islam. These ideas were readily accepted by Malays, since they are highly congruent with pre-existing notions among aboriginal peoples of Malaya involving a hot-cold opposition in the material and spiritual universe and its effects upon human health. Islamic Malays have adapted these aboriginal beliefs to correspond to the Greek-Arabic humoral model in matters concerning foods, diseases, and medicines. Although Malay theories of disease causation include such concepts as soul loss and spirit attack, along with 'naturalistic' ideas such as dietary imbalance and systemic reactions to foods, all of these theories can either be reinterpreted in humoral terms, or, at least, are congruent with the basic tenets of Islamic humoral pathology. Behaviors and beliefs regarding human reproduction, however, while essentially following a humoral pattern, diverge from Islamic, as well as traditional Chinese and Indian Ayurvedic, humoral theories. Unlike any other major humoral doctrine, Malay reproductive theory (like that of non-Islamic aboriginal peoples of Malaya) equates coldness with health and fertility and heat with disease and sterility. These ideas, in turn, are related to beliefs regarding the nature of the spirit world: the destructiveness of spiritual heat and the efficacy of cooling prayer.
  9. Clean water provision in rural areas of less developed countries
    Roundy RW
    Soc Sci Med, 1985;20(3):293-300.
    PMID: 3975696
    The decade of the 1980s is declared as a time to solve global domestic water supply problems. By 1990 international goals include the provision of adequate quantities of clean water to every person on earth. Such goals are justified on the basis of human health, economic well being, political development and equity and public safety. Drawing upon observations from Ethiopia, Malaysia and Liberia, cases where attempts to provide domestic water to villagers and rural town dwellers are presented. In all cited cases attempts to provide safe water have failed or are in jeopardy. Conclusions drawn from these cases include acknowledgement that global goals will best be achieved by approaching local problems one-by-one and recognizing the technical, environmental and human constraints upon safe water provision interact differently from one site to another. To properly plan, implement and maintain safe water systems the current technical solutions must be combined with the contributions of social and environmental scientists on a case-by-case basis.
  10. A model of the demand for medical and health services in Peninsular Malaysia
    Heller PS
    Soc Sci Med, 1982;16(3):267-84.
    PMID: 7100978 DOI: 10.1016/0277-9536(82)90337-9
    This paper provides an empirical analysis of the determinants of the demand for medical services in Peninsular Malaysia. After elaborating a theoretical model of household demand for medical care in Section II an econometric model is specified and estimated in Sections III, IV, and V. The results indicate that total medical demand, as measured by the absolute volume of outpatient and inpatient consumption, is highly inelastic to the cash price and to the cost in time of utilization. Total medical demand is also inelastic with respect to income. Yet consumers are clearly responsive to the relative prices of alternative sources of medical care. Consumers are also sensitive to the way in which the time of utilization is spent, with high travel and treatment time causing reduced demand for services.
  11. Malay midwives and witches
    Karim WJ
    Soc Sci Med, 1984;18(2):159-66.
    PMID: 6701560
    This paper attempts to analyse professional rivalry and dissonance amongst traditional Malay midwives (bidan kampung) in the Northwest areas of Peninsular Malaysia. It elucidates how techniques of symbolic and ritual communication are carefully monitored by these female specialists, to develop regular clientele and professional credibility over time. However, since an integral element of Malay midwifery is protection from and mastery over mystical forces in nature and evil spirits harboured by witches, a midwife is also an exorcist with skills rather similar to the Malay bomoh (traditional medical practitioner, usually male) except that her range of knowledge of witchcraft is limited to diagnostic and curative rituals of spirit-possession, in infants and children, young unmarried women and pregnant mothers. Within a restricted population area, professional rivalries and competition amongst midwives regularly surface in oblique attacks of witchcraft accusations where the accused strives to maintain her credibility while her accuser gradually wins over her clientele. Significantly, codes of professionalism in traditional Malay midwifery are not only determined by skill and experience, but also religiousness (faith in Islam), benevolence, virtue, diligence and a sense of equality and fair-play in the practice of the trade. These qualities are seemingly lacking in witches who are conceived to be anti-Islamic, uncompromising, manevolent and destructive. Thus, government midwives who threaten the popularity of traditional midwives by being particularly active in their work or supervising and controlling midwives in an authoritarian way, are also labelled as witches. Generally, while midwifery and witchcraft reflect two forms of knowledge that are structurally opposed, in ideology and morality, they exist within the same sphere of ritual and symbolic communication where the practitioners aided by their clients, shift from one state of dissonance to another in an attempt to regulate behaviour.
  12. Black magic and illness in a Malaysian Chinese community
    Mo B
    Soc Sci Med, 1984;18(2):147-57.
    PMID: 6701559
    Ah Yuk Je is a successful Hakka Chinese spirit medium practicing in a small Chinese community in Malaysia. Her clientele consists largely of young children suffering from a culturally specific condition called haak geng or 'soul loss' and women concerned about infertility, prenatal problems and errant spouses. While in a trance state, assisted by her tutelary spirits, she diagnoses, prescribes and treats illnesses. Her treatment includes naturalistic and magico-religious elements such as 'cooling' herbal teas, tonics to strengthen the body, rituals and amulets. Because Ah Yuk Je is a wife and mother, women find her sympathetic and astute at solving family problems. When faced with an illness herself, which she suspects to be the result of kong tao (black magic) instigated by someone in her own village, she seeks assistance from a healer outside her own ethnic group as well as outside her community. Four important factors influence Ah Yuk Je's decision to seek out this healer. The first two, recommendation from a trusted friend and a positive previous experience, are obvious, and require no further discussion. The remaining factors are the special nature of the illness, which requires treatment from a specialist, and her practice as a spirit medium. Successful spirit mediums are perceived to have a certain immunity to and control over supernatural forces. Thus the need for secrecy when a spirit medium becomes the victim of evil forces. She is able to preserve her professional reputation by consulting someone outside her ethnic group of potential clients as well as outside her physical community.
  13. 'Mother Needles': lessons on inter-ethnic psychiatry in Malaysian society
    Provencher R
    Soc Sci Med, 1984;18(2):139-46.
    PMID: 6701558 DOI: 10.1016/0277-9536(84)90034-0
    Details of curing rituals symbolize social traumas. Western based psychiatrists are often not very successful in treating Malay patients because of the difficulty of understanding the ritual signs. This paper focusses upon cultural details as they relate to a curer. The paper begins by discussing 'medical pluralism' and proceeds to a consideration of one local healer.
  14. Assessing socioeconomic correlates of birthweight in peninsular Malaysia: ethnic differences and changes over time
    DaVanzo J, Habicht JP, Butz WP
    Soc Sci Med, 1984;18(5):387-404.
    PMID: 6729519
    This paper presents evidence from the Malaysian Family Life Survey that mothers' reports of their babies' birthweights, including reports of unweighed babies' approximate size at birth, can be used to examine many biological and socioeconomic correlates of birthweight. The study uses a sample of 5583 singleton births that occurred between 1945 and 1976. In these data, the frequency distribution of birthweights and their bivariate and multivariate relationships with the biological correlates of mother's age, baby's sex, first parity and infant mortality are consistent with those found in prospective studies. A new biological correlate, mother's age at menarche, is introduced as a proxy for the mother's nutrition during childhood. Late age at menarche is associated with lower birthweight. Other results show mothers younger than 20 years and older than 35 appear to be at greater risk of bearing small babies, but the former effect is no longer important when parity is controlled. Short interbirth intervals are associated with small babies. We attempt to distinguish whether this is due to prematurity or to maternal nutritional depletion; both effects appear to be operating. Higher income appears to mitigate the pernicious effect of short interbirth intervals. Indian babies weigh significantly less than those of other ethnic groups. Furthermore, birthweights have increased since the 1950s for Malays and Chinese, but not for Indians. The lower birthweights and lack of improvement over time for Indians appear to be due to close birthspacing, lack of access to medical care and falling incomes.
  15. 'These are modern times': infant feeding practice in Peninsular Malaysia
    Manderson L
    Soc Sci Med, 1984;18(1):47-57.
    PMID: 6695200 DOI: 10.1016/0277-9536(84)90343-5
    Traditionally, Malaysian women (Malay, Indian and Chinese) breastfed their infants as a matter of course and for an extended period of time; only elite Chinese women might have resorted to a wet-nurse. But the introduction of condensed and dehydrated milk in colonial Malaya from the late nineteenth century, and the later marketing also of commercially manufactured baby foods, led to some variation in traditional practice. Structural changes, industrialiZation and urbanisation affected social as well as economic life, and again these broad changes had an impact on infant feeding. Today, few women remain unfamiliar with the wide range of infant food products sold in the most isolated provision shops. This paper focuses on key sociological factors that might predict the frequency and duration of breastfeeding and weaning patterns. The data analysed below, collected during semi-structured interviews with 278 women presenting at Maternal and Child Health Clinics in Peninsular Malaysia, are in part confusing. They suggest that the women most likely to bottle feed only or to breast feed for a short period, and to use commercial baby foods, are young, with one child only, who reside in urban or peri-urban areas and have a reasonable household income. Higher educated women, and women whose husbands are in non-traditional occupations, are also less likely to breast feed or to do so for an extended period. But the profile of infant feeding practices is by no means clear. One of the shortcomings of the study relates to the method of collection of data, and highlights the need for detailed ethnographic studies to better explore the variability and complexity of the patterns of infant feeding.
  16. Alternative systems in Malaysian drug rehabilitation: organization and control in comparative perspective
    Lee RL
    Soc Sci Med, 1985;21(11):1289-96.
    PMID: 4095582
    This paper examines four drug rehabilitation systems in Malaysia from an organizational perspective. It focuses on authority structures in rehabilitation centres and their impact on rehabilitees' identities. The findings show that there are important differences between government-run and private centres in terms of administration and approach to therapy. Some policy implications are derived from a comparison of these systems.
  17. Smoking among urban Malaysian school children
    Thambypillai V
    Soc Sci Med, 1985;21(7):819-23.
    PMID: 4071118 DOI: 10.1016/0277-9536(85)90130-3
    A questionnaire on smoking habits was administered to 4106 Form IV school children in Kuala Lumpur. The period of survey was from 9 to 20 April 1984. 2099 boys and 2007 girls were studied and their mean age was 16.1 years. 32.8% of the students had been initiated to smoking and the mean age of initiation was 13.3 years. The prevalence of smoking was found to be 9.8% and the mean duration of smoking was 2.5 years. Most of the smokers and occasional smokers were boys. About 42% of the smokers wished to stop smoking and only 1% of the non-smokers intended to smoke in the future. The study recommended that health education programmes should be started earlier in school.
  18. Syndemic anemia in British Malaya: An early global health encounter with hookworm and malaria Co-infections in plantation workers
    Webb JLA
    Soc Sci Med, 2020 Nov 26.
    PMID: 33261905 DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113555
    With the establishment of the International Health Commission in 1913, the Rockefeller Foundation sought governmental partnerships overseas to combat hookworm disease and improve feces disposal practices. In the Madras Presidency in British India, the India Research Fund Association carried out hookworm surveys but failed in its educational efforts to improve feces disposal practices. In British Malaya, the Uncinariasis [Hookworm] Commission to the Orient discovered a syndemic of anemia among Tamil plantation laborers from the Madras Presidency and Chinese laborers from southern China who suffered from hookworm and malarial co-infections. Confronted with the apparent infeasibility of improving feces disposal practices and the obdurate fact of re-infection with hookworm after purgative treatment, the Rockefeller Foundation ended its hookworm initiative in British Malaya without advocating for programmatic intervention against syndemic anemia. The essay concludes with a reflection on the engagement of historians with the syndemic paradigm.
  19. A comparative review of mobile health and electronic health utilization in sub-Saharan African countries
    Bervell B, Al-Samarraie H
    Soc Sci Med, 2019 07;232:1-16.
    PMID: 31035241 DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.04.024
    This study distinguished between the application of e-health and m-health technologies in sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries based on the dimensions of use, targeted diseases or health conditions, locations of use, and beneficiaries (types of patients or health workers) in a country specific context. It further characterized the main opportunities and challenges associated with these dimensions across the sub-region. A systematic review of the literature was conducted on 66 published peer reviewed articles. The review followed the scientific process of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines of identification, selection, assessment, synthesis and interpretation of findings. The results of the study showed that m-health was prevalent in usage for promoting information for treatment and prevention of diseases as well as serving as an effective technology for reminders towards adherence. For e-health, the uniqueness lay in data acquisition and patients' records management; diagnosis; training and recruitment. While m-health was never used for monitoring or training and recruitment, e-health on the other hand could not serve the purpose of reminders or for reporting cases from the field. Both technologies were however useful for adherence, diagnosis, disease control mechanisms, information provision, and decision-making/referrals. HIV/AIDS, malaria, and maternal (postnatal and antenatal) healthcare were important in both m-health and e-health interventions mostly concentrated in the rural settings of South Africa and Kenya. ICT infrastructure, trained personnel, illiteracy, lack of multilingual text and voice messages were major challenges hindering the effective usage of both m-health and e-health technologies.
  20. Associations of religiosity, attitudes towards suicide and religious coping with suicidal ideation and suicide attempts in 11 muslim countries
    Eskin M, Baydar N, El-Nayal M, Asad N, Noor IM, Rezaeian M, et al.
    Soc Sci Med, 2020 11;265:113390.
    PMID: 33007656 DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113390
    OBJECTIVE: The study investigated the associations of religiosity, religious coping and suicide acceptance to suicide ideation and attempts in 7427 young adults affiliating with Islam from 11 Muslim countries.

    METHOD: A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data. We used F and χ2 tests and correlation analyses to report descriptive statistics. Multi-group path models with (i) a zero-inflated Poisson distribution and, (ii) a Binomial distribution were used to model the number of occurrences of suicidal ideation, and occurrence of a suicide attempt, respectively.

    RESULTS: Religiosity was negatively associated with acceptability of suicide, but it was positively related to punishment after death across the 11 countries. Religiosity was negatively associated with ever experiencing suicidal ideation, both directly and indirectly through its association with attitudes towards suicide, especially the belief in acceptability of suicide. Neither positive nor negative religious coping were related to suicidal ideation. However, religiosity was negatively related to suicide attempts among those who experienced suicidal ideation at least once. This association was mediated through the belief in acceptability of suicide and religious coping. Negative religious coping was positively associated with suicide attempts probably because it weakened the protective effects of religiosity.

    CONCLUSIONS: Findings from this study suggest that the effects of religiosity in the suicidal process operate through attitudes towards suicide. We therefore conclude that clinical assessment as well as research in suicidology may benefit from paying due attention to attitudes towards suicide.

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