This project allows a fieldworker from the University of New Mexico and three graduate students and collaborating physicians to investigate the interaction between behavior, health and reproduction in traditional societies. Specifically the researchers will study health, subsistence, reproduction and parenting among a tribe of Indians in Manu National Park, Peru. The project will investigate the factors affecting the growth, health and survival of Indian children, with special interest on parental strategies for guarding their children's health, and on the effects of nutrition and work on women's fecundity. This research is important because it will provide an understanding of demographic and health issues in a small-scale, traditional community living in fairly primitive conditions. Any understanding of these issues in more industrialized urban conditions has to build upon a baseline of understanding from more primitive conditions. This project will provide data of significant value toward this end.
