Socio-ecological Conditions Research Articles

Food security and dietary patterns in the Tajik Pamirs

For mountain regions in the so-called ‘developing world’, an increase in the number of people considered vulnerable to food insecurity has been noted since the turn of the millennium. Challenging environmental settings, as well as difficult societal conditions have been identified as sources of aggravation to mountain food systems. This paper applies a case study approach, conducted in a remote settlement in the Western Pamirs of Tajikistan, to underpin these general insights with detailed accounts of the complexity of the subject under study, and examines the question of how food security plays out in a specific local setting. The goal is to illustrate how socio-ecological conditions influence the food situation in a specific location, how different parameters generate unequal access to food and effect the nutrition patterns of local households, and what dynamics these patterns exhibit over time. Empirical material was analyzed using Cannon’s food systems approach. The findings exemplify how ensuring food security is made more difficult by the concurrence of challenging conditions, that there is a relationship between the socio-economic status and the dietary patterns of individual households, and how consumption patterns are subject to fluctuations over time. Based upon this, I argue that customized strategies are vital in order to tackle food security challenges in specific settings effectively, and that differentiated, empirically grounded analyses are essential to developing such approaches.

The ecology of opportunity: connecting socioecological health and school achievement in Alabama

ABSTRACT This study investigates the association between school-level achievement and the relative health of the social environment in which children are embedded, to gain a more comprehensive understanding of how behavioural, social, physical, and socio-emotional contexts may holistically impact learning. While research has recognised how specific aspects of a child’s environment can impact learning, what is less understood is how multiple facets of socioecological conditions may holistically contribute to learning advantages or disadvantages. To address this, we combine seven years and over 9,000 observations of school-level achievement scores from the U.S. state of Alabama with a comprehensive scale of “socioecological health” – a measure that includes multiple indicators such as nutrition access, housing quality, neighbourhood violence, social supports, income inequality, and mental health access. We then employ a three-level hierarchical linear modelling approach to assess the association between socioecological health and school achievement. Results suggest that (1) higher levels of socioecological health are associated with higher levels of school achievement; (2) effects are strongest for older students and rural students; and (3) healthy behaviours, social supports, and positive physical environment correspond with higher school achievement. These results highlight the breadth to which social and environmental determinants may influence learning opportunities and underscores the need for a more holistic and inclusive approach to educational leadership and social policy.

Planning for green infrastructure by integrating multi-driver: Ranking priority based on accessibility equity

Green infrastructure provides multifarious benefits, improving urban resilience and sustainability amid increasing climate change and urbanization. Traditional green infrastructure planning studies were based on the spatial-equity principle, which usually neglected residents’ aggregation pattern, leading to the conflict with equitable green exposure. Using the sponge city of Zhengzhou as a case, this study proposes a novel priority ranking strategy, namely accessibility equity. We first spatially quantified the regional socioecological conditions on 0.25 km2 grids as green infrastructure planning drivers, including stormwater management, urban thermal environment, air quality, habitat maintenance and water purification. Subsequently we integrated these planning drivers with population density to conduct spatial autocorrelation analysis, priority ranking, and grid clustering. While most planning drivers are positively correlated with population density, except air quality, some areas show opposite trends in terms of local perspective, suggesting that the spatial equity may lead to mismatch between residents’ demand and GI priority. The priority order based on accessibility equity, rises in the city center and falls in suburbs and industrial zones. The study area is divided into four categories using k-means clustering, and we propose the corresponding adaptive green infrastructure development strategy. The framework can be a practical tool for guiding green infrastructure and sponge city projects.

Development of management effectiveness indicators and their evaluation for Cu Lao Cham-Hoi an biosphere reserve in Vietnam

Vietnam has 11 Biosphere Reserves (BRs) designated by UNESCO where evaluation of management effectiveness plays an important role to promote sustainability for these areas. We propose a set of indicators suitable to Vietnam’s social-ecological conditions based on the IUCN concepts of management effectiveness and the consultation dialogues with relevant BR stakeholders. This set includes 58 indicators, 20 headline indicators according to 6 management elements of BR: Context, Planning, Inputs, Process, Outputs and Outcomes. Management effectiveness value is divided into 5 levels (0, 25, 50, 75, 100) and thereafter categorised into 4 ranges according to the corresponding value (Very low: 0–25 points; Low: 25–50 points; Average: 50–75 points; High: 75–100 points) with the higher the value, the greater the effectiveness. Based on the indicators, we evaluated the management effectiveness of Cu Lao Cham-Hoi An BR (designated in 2009). The results of evaluating management effectiveness for this BR have determined that the overall management effectiveness for the whole BR is 78.2 out of 100 scores, equivalent to high management effectiveness. Results for management elements: element 1 (Context-85.8 score), element 2 (Planning-83.5 score), element 3 (Inputs-73.4 score), element 4 (Process-76.3 score), element 5 (Outputs-68.3 score) and element 6 (Outcomes-81.9 score). Although the indicators presented a useful analysis of management effectiveness in this particular case, owing the diversity of BRs in Vietnam in terms of socio-ecological conditions, total area, governance model and administration, caution should be applied in the treatment and/or selection of these indicators for all BR cases and the 58 indicators should be used as a guide for each specific BR.

Wild raccoons demonstrate flexibility and individuality in innovative problem-solving.

Cognitive skills, such as innovative problem-solving, are hypothesized to aid animals in urban environments. However, the significance of innovation in wild populations, and its expression across individuals and socio-ecological conditions, is poorly understood. To identify how and when innovation arises in urban-dwelling species, we used advanced technologies and new testing and analytical methods to evaluate innovative problem-solving abilities of wild raccoons (Procyon lotor). We deployed multi-compartment puzzle boxes with either one or multiple solution types and identified raccoons using radio frequency identification. Raccoons solved these novel extractive foraging tasks, and their success was influenced by age and exploratory diversity. Successful raccoons always discovered multiple different solution types, highlighting flexible problem-solving. Using a unique, comparative sequence analysis approach, we found that variation in raccoon solving techniques was greater between individuals than within individuals, and this self-similarity intensified during times of competition. Finally, the inclusion of an easier solution in the multi-solution trials enabled previously unsuccessful raccoons to bootstrap their learning and successfully open multiple difficult solutions. Our study suggests that innovative problem-solving is probably influenced by many factors and has provided novel field and analytical methods, as well as new insights on the socio-ecological dynamics of urban populations.

Nexus between Western and Chinese crude oil mining firms: An examination of modalities, practices, and socio-ecological ramifications

This study examines the operational methods, procedures, and socio-ecological impacts of Western and Chinese crude oil extraction industries, focusing on regional variations. Due to institutional dynamics, the study reveals distinct emissions patterns among state-owned sectors in China and the Western Union region. This was achieved by employing DID regression models, using a sample of 60 crude oil mining companies. Furthermore, the data demonstrates that intensifying research and development endeavors directly correlate with pollution reduction, indicating that technological advancements could foster a greater sense of environmental consciousness. Nevertheless, larger corporations emit more pollution, substantially utilizing resources and manufacturing. Both nations prioritize the government's role in reducing negative environmental impacts caused by pollution by implementing regulatory frameworks. Additionally, they focus on achieving long-term ecological sustainability through corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. The paper suggests government involvement is necessary to enhance socio-ecological conditions at crude oil mining sites in Western and Chinese regions.

Volumetric pricing in rural Central America: Drivers of adoption and potential effects on water delivery

In rural and peri‑urban areas of Central America, community water organizations (CWOs) provide water to 60 % of the population, thereby playing a pivotal role in achieving multiple Sustainable Development Goals. However, the underlying environmental, climatic, and institutional factors explaining the adoption of volumetric pricing from these water providers and its effect on service delivery are typically overlooked in the literature. In this paper, we address two issues. First, we test whether volumetric pricing affects the service water delivery in a rural setting, drawing on a random sample of cross-sectional data on 154 CWOs in Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. We find that volumetric pricing is associated with substantially more successful water delivery, even when conditioned on institutional capacity, environmental attributes, climatic conditions, and country-fixed effects. Despite this strong relationship, volumetric pricing has yet to be widely adopted, particularly in Nicaragua and Guatemala. Therefore, as the second goal, we try to identify the institutional and socio-ecological conditions in which volumetric pricing is adopted. We find that volumetric pricing is more likely used when communities (1) experience adverse environmental and climatic conditions associated with water scarcity and (2) have greater institutional capacity. Our results highlight the importance of examining the social-ecological system to assess the performance and adoption of water management institutions

Refugee health and physiological profiles in transitional settlements in Serbia and Kenya: Comparative evidence for effects of gender and social support

When armed conflict compels people to flee from their homelands, they embark on protracted journeys during which they experience wide ranging physical, social, and psychological challenges. Few studies have focused on refugee psychosocial and physiological profiles during the transitional phase of forced migration that often involves temporary sheltering. Transient refugees’ experiences can vary substantially based on local socio-ecological conditions in temporary settlements, including the length of stay, living conditions, as well as the availability and accessibility of physical and social resources. In this study, we compared physiological and psychosocial data from refugees (N=365; 406 observations) in Serbia and Kenya, respectively, with divergent temporal (length of stay) and socio-ecological conditions. In Serbia, refugees resided in asylum centers (mean stay: 0.9 y); in Kenya they were living in Kakuma Refugee Camp (mean stay: 8.8 y), one of the world’s largest camps at the time. We had limited ability to directly compare psychosocial measures and used meta-analytic techniques to evaluate predictors of refugee mental and physical health at the two sites, including based on perceived social support. Refugees in Serbia had higher fingernail cortisol (p < 0.001) and were less likely to have elevated C-reactive protein (CRP) levels (p < 0.01) than refugees in Kakuma. We found common gender differences in both settings; women had lower cortisol but higher EBV antibody titers and higher likelihood of having elevated CRP compared to men (all p < 0.01). Woman also reported poorer mental and physical health (p < 0.001). These physiological and health differences may reflect variation between men and women in their psychosocial and physical experiences of factors such as stress, violence, and trauma during their journeys and as transitional refugees. Finally, we also found that refugees with lower levels of perceived social support reported poorer physical and mental health (p < 0.001). Although our results are cross-sectional, they suggest that this intermittent phase of the refugee experience is a key window for helping enhance refugee well-being through an emphasis on interpersonal and community support systems.

Earliest directly dated rock art from Patagonia reveals socioecological resilience to mid-Holocene climate.

The timing for the evolution of the capacity to inscribe the landscape with rock art has global relevance. While this was an in-built capacity when Homo sapiens first colonized the Americas, the heterogeneous distribution of rock art shows that it was a facultative behavior arising under unknown socioecological conditions. Patagonia was the last region to be explored by humans. While its rock art is globally important, it remains largely undated by absolute methods. We report the earliest set of directly radiocarbon-dated rock art motifs from the archaeological site Cueva Huenul 1 (northwestern Patagonia, Argentina), starting at 8.2 thousand years before the present (ka B.P.), predating previous records by several millennia, and encompassing over 3 ka (~130 human generations). This mid-Holocene "rock art emergence" phase overlaps with extremely arid conditions and a human demographic stasis. We suggest that this diachronic rock art emerged as part of a resilient response to ecological stress by highly mobile and low-density populations.

Cross-societal variation in norm enforcement systems.

Across human societies, people are sometimes willing to punish norm violators. Such punishment can take the form of revenge from victims, seemingly altruistic intervention from third parties, or legitimized sanctioning from institutional representatives. Although prior work has documented cross-cultural regularities in norm enforcement, substantial variation exists in the prevalence and forms of punishment across societies. Such cross-societal variation may arise from universal psychological mechanisms responding to different socio-ecological conditions, or from cultural evolutionary processes, resulting in different norm enforcement systems. To date, empirical evidence from comparative studies across diverse societies has remained disconnected, owing to a lack of interdisciplinary integration and a prevalent tendency of empirical studies to focus on different underpinnings of variation in norm enforcement. To provide a more complete view of the shared and unique aspects of punishment across societies, we review prior research in anthropology, economics and psychology, and take a first step towards integrating the plethora of socio-ecological and cultural factors proposed to explain cross-societal variation in norm enforcement. We conclude by discussing how future cross-societal research can use diverse methodologies to illuminate key questions on the domain-specificity of punishment, the diversity of tactics supporting social norms, and their role in processes of norm change. This article is part of the theme issue 'Social norm change: drivers and consequences'.

Flexible grouping patterns in a western and eastern chimpanzee community.

Primate social organizations, or grouping patterns, vary significantly across species. Behavioral strategies that allow for flexibility in grouping patterns offer a means to reduce the costs of group living. Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) have a fission-fusion social system in which temporary subgroups ("parties") change in composition because of local socio-ecological conditions. Notably, western chimpanzees (P. t. verus) are described as showing a higher degree of bisexual bonding and association than eastern chimpanzees, and eastern female chimpanzees (P. t. schweinfurthii) are thought to be more solitary than western female chimpanzees. However, reported comparisons in sociality currently depend on a small number of study groups, particularly in western chimpanzees, and variation in methods. The inclusion of additional communities and direct comparison using the same methods are essential to assess whether reported subspecies differences in sociality hold in this behaviorally heterogeneous species. We explored whether sociality differs between two communities of chimpanzees using the same motion-triggered camera technology and definitions of social measures. We compare party size and composition (party type, sex ratio) between the western Gahtoy community in the Nimba Mountains (Guinea) and the eastern Waibira community in the Budongo Forest (Uganda). Once potential competition for resources such as food and mating opportunities were controlled for, subspecies did not substantially influence the number of individuals in a party. We found a higher sex-ratio, indicating more males in a party, in Waibira; this pattern was driven by a greater likelihood in Gahtoy to be in all-female parties. This finding is the opposite of what was expected for eastern chimpanzees, where female-only parties are predicted to be more common. Our results highlight the flexibility in chimpanzee sociality, and caution against subspecies level generalizations.

Wild and captive immature orangutans differ in their non-vocal communication with others, but not with their mothers

In many group-living species, individuals are required to flexibly modify their communicative behaviour in response to current social challenges. To unravel whether sociality and communication systems co-evolve, research efforts have often targeted the links between social organisation and communicative repertoires. However, it is still unclear which social or interactional factors directly predict communicative complexity. To address this issue, we studied wild and zoo-housed immature orangutans of two species to assess the impact of the socio-ecological setting on the production of non-vocal signal repertoires. Specifically, we compared repertoire size, dyadic repertoire similarity, and number of social goals (i.e. observer’s estimate of the signaller’s intended interaction outcome) for communicative interactions with mothers versus other conspecifics, controlling for critical individual and environmental factors. In this small sample of immature orangutans, wild-captive contrasts were statistically significant only for other-directed repertoires, but not for mother-directed repertoires, and not for the number of social goals that immatures communicated towards. While the repertoires of individuals living in the same research setting were more similar than those living in contrasting settings, this difference was most pronounced for other-directed repertoires of the less socially tolerant orangutan species. These results suggest that the boosted interactional opportunities in captivity rather than mere differences in environmental affordances or communicative needs drive the wild-captive contrast in orangutan communicative repertoires. Overall, this fine-grained analysis of repertoires further underscores that not only a species’ social organisation but also the targeted audience may have a profound impact on communicative behaviour.Significance statementNavigating a dynamic social environment often requires flexible signal use. While it has repeatedly been shown that the social organisation and structure of species predict the complexity of their communication systems, the mechanisms underlying these relationships are largely unknown. Because targeted studies to assess this issue in great apes are difficult, we take an alternative approach here: we compare the same species living in the wild and in artificial habitats in captivity. This contrast allows a direct test of how repertoires respond to the relevant difference in socio-ecological conditions. Our results show that the diversity of interaction partners (i.e. social opportunities), but not the diversity of social goals (i.e. possible interaction outcomes) or the broader physical opportunities (i.e. safe ground use), predict the size and consistency of wild and captive signalling repertoires.

Coexistence from a lion's perspective: Movements and habitat selection by African lions (Panthera leo) across a multi-use landscape.

Diminishing wild space and population fragmentation are key drivers of large carnivore declines worldwide. The persistence of large carnivores in fragmented landscapes often depends on the ability of individuals to move between separated subpopulations for genetic exchange and recovery from stochastic events. Where separated by anthropogenic landscapes, subpopulations' connectivity hinges on the area's socio-ecological conditions for coexistence and dispersing individuals' behavioral choices. Using GPS-collars and resource- and step-selection functions, we explored African lion (Panthera leo) habitat selection and movement patterns to better understand lions' behavioral adjustments in a landscape shared with pastoralists. We conducted our study in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA), Tanzania, a multiuse rangeland, that connects the small, high density lion subpopulation of the Ngorongoro Crater with the extensive Serengeti lion population. Landscape use by pastoralists and their livestock in the NCA varies seasonally, driven by the availability of pasture, water, and disease avoidance. The most important factor for lion habitat selection was the amount of vegetation cover, but its importance varied with the distance to human settlements, season and time of day. Although we noted high levels of individual variation in tolerance for humans, in general lions avoided humans on the landscape and used more cover when closer to humans. Females showed more consistent avoidance of humans and stronger use of cover when near humans than did males. Connectivity of lion subpopulations does not appear to be blocked by sparse pastoralist settlements, and nomadic males, key to subpopulation connectivity, significantly avoided humans during the day, suggesting a behavioral strategy for conflict mitigation. These results are consistent with lions balancing risk from humans with exploitation of livestock by altering their behaviors to reduce potential conflict. Our study lends some optimism for the adaptive capacity of lions to promote coexistence with humans in shared landscapes.

Perawatan yang Beracun: Kerja Perawatan Perkebunan dan Reproduksi Sosial dalam Perkebunan Monokultur Sawit

The expansion of oil palm plantation has drawn scholarship attention. On one hand, studies have examined how oil palm plantation development serves an important instrument for employment creation, poverty alleviation and rural development. On the other, there is plenty of research that shows adverse impacts of such expansion on socio-ecological conditions. This includes the recruitment of women plantation workers into maintenance work with flexible labour relations. Meanwhile, literature on oil palm plantations in Indonesia has not paid significant attention on care work. Employing feminist political economy perspective, this article attempts to understand care work in monoculture oil palm plantations, particularly in relations to maintenance work on plantation. Through the concept of social reproduction, care work is understood in a broader terms as a way to draw the entanglement between production and reproduction in monoculture oil palm plantations. This article argues that women workers participation into maintenance work on plantations show the articulation of social relations based on patriarchal system with palm oil competition in the global market. From the perspective of the women workers, participation in the maintenance work is viewed as a livelihood strategy. The strategy that involves works with risk of regular exposure to toxic chemicals is understood as toxic care.

Climatic controls and costly signaling: An integrated analysis of Holocene hunting in the Bonneville and Wyoming Basins, USA

In this paper, we explore and integrate different currencies that may underlie large-game hunting to guide a trans-Holocene analysis of variation in artiodactyl utilization using massive archaeofaunal data-sets from predominantly open-air sites from the Bonneville and Wyoming basins. The available empirical data continue to suggest that artiodactyls yield consistently higher return rates than lagomorphs allowing us to leverage predictions from both the prey choice and energetic risk-gain models that the relative importance of artiodactyl hunting should scale closely with climate-based change in their abundance on the landscape. We document with modeled climate data that seasonal variables correlated with the relative frequency of artiodactyl hunting, but that summer temperature had a significant overriding effect in both regions. Controlling for the negative relationship between summer temperature and artiodactyl abundances, we then document enhanced artiodactyl hunting in general and bison more specifically during the Fremont period that is consistent with a costly signaling hypothesis and the unique socio-ecological conditions of this context. Thus, climatic variation and its influence on artiodactyl abundances drives the overall trajectory of Holocene large game hunting variation but measurable and more subtle influences of costly signaling are also detected.

The road to recovery: conservation management for the Critically Endangered Bali myna shows signs of success

AbstractThe Bali myna Leucopsar rothschildi has long suffered heavy trapping, leading to its near extinction in the wild and categorization as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List. Decades of conservation breeding, release of birds and post-release management at Bali Barat National Park have, until recently, failed to secure a viable wild population. However, over the past decade, population increases, expansion into new areas of the National Park and beyond, and successful breeding in both artificial and natural nest sites have occurred. These recent successes are associated with a change in approach by the National Park authority from concentrating efforts on the last refugium of the species (an area protected from trapping but with potentially suboptimal habitat) and towards the human-dominated landscapes around the main road through the National Park. Bali mynas tended to favour areas with extensive shorter grass cover and open canopies and to shun denser woodland. Anthropogenic landscapes such as farmland and plantations presumably mimic the original savannah habitat of the species, but nestbox provision has probably been crucial in these areas in the absence of natural cavities. A potential further factor in the increases in myna numbers and range has been a scheme involving local people in commercial breeding of the species, thereby reducing its market price, and working with communities to reduce trapping pressure. We encourage continuing operation of this management strategy inside the National Park and its further extension into adjacent tourist areas, which appear to have myna-friendly socio-ecological conditions.

“No research on a dead planet”: preserving the socio-ecological conditions for academia

Despite thousands of higher education institutions (HEIs) having issued Climate Emergency declarations, most academics continue to operate according to ‘business-as-usual’. However, such passivity increases the risk of climate impacts so severe as to threaten the persistence of organized society, and thus HEIs themselves. This paper explores why a maladaptive cognitive-practice gap persists and asks what steps could be taken by members of HEIs to activate the academy. Drawing on insights from climate psychology and sociology, we argue that a process of ‘socially organized denial’ currently exists within universities, leading academics to experience a state of ‘double reality’ that inhibits feelings of accountability and agency, and this is self-reenforcing through the production of ‘pluralistic ignorance.’ We further argue that these processes serve to uphold the cultural hegemony of ‘business-as-usual’ and that this is worsened by the increasing neo-liberalization of modern universities. Escaping these dynamics will require deliberate efforts to break taboos, through frank conversations about what responding to a climate emergency means for universities’ – and individual academics’ – core values and goals.

Crowdsourcing social values data: Flickr and public participation GIS provide different perspectives of ecosystem services in a remote coastal region

Spatial planning and environmental management are expected to adopt participatory processes. However, the needed spatial data on social values of ecosystem services are limited, especially for marine spatial planning for large, remote coastal areas, and the collection of such information can be time and resource intensive. Crowdsourcing techniques are cost efficient sources of social values data, but must meet the information needs of planners and managers with sufficient confidence. We evaluated the reliability of crowdsourced social values data by assessing the agreement between geotagged photos posted to the social media platform Flickr and data from an online public participation GIS (PPGIS) survey conducted to support marine spatial planning in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.Flickr could not represent all of the social values mapped in the PPGIS dataset, was notably dominated by scenic values, and under-represented the importance of recreational fishing and Aboriginal cultural values. The Flickr dataset was more affected by accessibility from settlements and transportation infrastructure (roads, boat ramps) and more restricted spatially. Maximum entropy (maxent) distribution models developed to explore the socioecological drivers determining where social values occur also highlighted that Flickr and PPGIS samples provide different perspectives on social values, even after accounting for differences in sampling intensity. The Flickr dataset suggested that the social values occurred under narrower ranges of socioecological conditions, and the PPGIS dataset was more likely to find protected areas to be valued, likely because participants believe protected areas to support those social values, but may not themselves pursue them there.Flickr and PPGIS crowdsourced datasets provide different perspectives on the spatial distribution of social values for several reasons: They differ in their spatial and demographic biases, as well as their measurement of revealed vs. stated preferences. Flickr is most effective at representing social values that are easily photographed and interpretable in photos, and may not capture some information needs of managers. PPGIS is under greater investigator control but, because stated preferences can be disconnected from actual use of the sites mapped, may be best suited for assessing management preferences and social acceptability. With understanding of the nuances of these datasets, crowdsourced social values data can be applied most appropriately to support successful planning outcomes.

A sand-security nexus: Insights from peri-urban Accra, Ghana

An expanding sphere of research engaging with the diverse geographies of sand, points to connections between sand extraction and the multiple forms of livelihood, food, health and ecological insecurities engendered therein. In conversation with this work, we suggest that the notion of security might be just one possible way of discussing the multiple relationships between sand and socio-ecological conditions. In this paper, we put forward the notion of a sand-security nexus, as a space for dialogue pertaining to the relationships between sand and [in]security. Drawing on data from the peripheral spaces of Accra and its surrounds - spaces from which sand is extracted to supply the growing city with construction material - we unpack the ood, livelihood, water and health insecurities that emanate from sand extraction and the ways these are experienced by inhabitants in these places. While we suggest that in peri-urban Accra the sand-security nexus cannot be separated from questions of tenure security and broader land use change, we advocate for a view that considers the distinct [in]securities stemming from sand extraction, experienced by inhabitants as a closing down of options, an anxious view of the future and managed, where possible, through practices of shifting time, energy and resources to alternative income making activities.

Do contrasting socio-ecological conditions bring difference in premenstrual syndrome and its concomitants? A sedente-migrant comparative study from Eastern India.

We asked in our research whether the premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and its concomitants, differ between "sedente" and "migrant" populations hailing from the same ethnic group, owing to their living in contrasting socio-ecological conditions. A total of 501 Oraon adolescents (sedente: 200, migrant: 301) were studied. Data on PMS was reported retrospectively using a list of 29 standard symptoms. Principal component analysis (PCA) was applied on PMS. PCA, which resulted in six principal components (PC1 to PC6) were loaded with "behavioral and cognitive," "negative mood," "pain and fluid retention," "vestibular and breast tenderness," and "fatigue," and/or "gastrointestinal" symptoms. Step-wise hierarchical regression was applied using migration status (step 1), socio-demographic (step 2), menstrual (step 3), and nutritional and lifestyle variables (step 4) as concomitants for each principal component. Significantly, a greater number of migrants reported PMS but of milder intensity, unlike the sedentes. Significant sedente-migrant differences were found in the concomitants for PMS. Multivariate analyses showed differential socio-demographic (occupational, educational and wealth status, religion), nutritional (dietary carbohydrate protein and fat, tea intake, body mass index, percent body fat, waist hip ratio, fat mass index), menstrual (age at menarche, cycle length, dysmenorrhoea) and anemic status of the sedentes and the migrants were significantly associated with PMS. Sedente and migrant participants, despite hailing from the same ethnic group, sharply differed in the prevalence of PMS and its concomitants owing to their living in contrasting socio-ecological conditions.