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Modernization Brings both Healthy

and Unhealthy Change to Members
of the Tsimane
By Karen Wentworth December 07, 2012

Categories: Research (/categories/research?c=20123) Inside UNM (/categories/inside-unm?c=20138)

UNM Department of Anthropology Research Assistant

Professor Jonathan Stieglitz is lead author of a new paper
published this week in PLoS ONE that examines the changes
as part of a long running research project among Tsimane
forager-farmers of the Bolivian Amazon.
The paper, "Modernization, Sexual Risk-Taking, and
Gynecological Morbidity among Bolivian ForagerHorticulturalists
Jonathan Stieglitz, right, in Bolivia

(http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0050384)" explores how sexual behavior

changes with modernization for both men and women and the consequence of these behavior changes for women's
reproductive health. The researchers were very interested in understanding whether Tsimane who lived closer to the
market town of San Borja are more likely to take sexual risks, and whether that in turn led to greater exposure to

sexually transmitted infections.

The Tsimane are forager-farmers in a rural area of Bolivia that still maintain their own small scale villages composed of
closely related kin. They speak an indigenous language which is unrelated to the Spanish spoken in nearby towns. The
Tsimane are in the early stages of modernization as they increasingly come into contact with a wider world. They lack
material wealth, electricity and running water and their access to schooling and modern healthcare, including
contraception, remains extremely limited. Tsimane men and some women are becoming a part of the local economy
as they travel to regional town markets to sell wood, thatched roof panels and horticultural products. Sporadically,
men engage in itinerant wage labor.
More than 500 sexually active women received gynecological exams and PAP smears as part of the Tsimane project's
routine screening for cervical cancer. Forty-eight percent exhibited inflammation of cervical cells and most
inflammation is due to bacterial vaginosis (35 percent). In 11 percent, however, the inflammation results from
trichomoniasis, a sexually transmitted infection.
The research group is currently funded by the National Institutes of Health (National Institute of Aging) to learn both
about the aging process under pre-modern conditions and how modernization influences physiology, behavior and
sociality over the lifespan. The project employs full-time Bolivian physicians and biochemists to visit villages
annually. The project has also established a stationary health clinic in San Borja. Regardless of their participation in
research, all Tsimane receive free health care from project physicians.
Stieglitz initially became interested in the issue as part of his Ph.D. research into marital conflict and cooperation.
"People often think about modernization as being associated with improved health outcomes and greater access to
schools," says Stieglitz. "But for indigenous, subsistence populations in the early stages of modernization, where
money is scarce and its acquisition highly variable over time, where people may lack knowledge of how infections may
be sexually transmitted and where people may be reluctant to communicate with medical professionals in town due to
linguistic or geographical barriers, mistrust, or prior discrimination, modernization may lead to a new increase in risk of
reproductive morbidity."
He says it is counter-intuitive that women who live near towns where there are hospitals are actually more likely to
have a sexually transmitted infection, but that is one of their major findings.
Collaborators include Aaron Blackwell, UC Santa Barbara; Ral Quispe (Tsimane project;) Edhitt Cortez (Tsimane
Project;) Michael Gurven, UC Santa Barbara and Hillard Kaplan, UNM.
Media contact: Karen Wentworth (505) 277-5627; email: kwent2@unm.edu (mailto:kwent2@unm.edu)

Tags: Anthropology (/news?t=Anthropology) Bolivia (/news?t=Bolivia) Jonathan Stieglitz (/news?t=Jonathan+Stieglitz)

Tsimane (/news?t=Tsimane) UNM (/news?t=UNM)

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Jonathan Stieglitz, right, in Bolivia

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