Mimi Nichter

University of Arizona | UA · School of Anthropology & College of Public Health

Background: This paper describes a pioneering effort to introduce smoking cessation into Indonesia's medical school curriculum, and the first ever attempt to fully integrate tobacco control in all four years of medical school anywhere in Southeast Asia. The development, pretesting, and piloting of an innovative modular tobacco curriculum are discu...

This paper describes a pioneering effort to introduce tobacco cessation into India's undergraduate medical college curriculum. This is the first ever attempt to fully integrate tobacco control across all years of medical college in any low and middle income country. The development, pretesting, and piloting of an innovative modular tobacco curricul...

Results of the Global Adult Tobacco Survey in Kerala, India found that 42 % of adults were exposed to second hand smoke (SHS) inside the home. Formative research carried out in rural Kerala suggests that exposure may be much higher. Numerous studies have called for research and intervention on SHS exposure among women and children as an important c...

Over the past 40 years, rates of adult smoking have fallen dramatically, yet young adults continue to smoke substantially more than any other age group. At a time when just about everyone knows that smoking is bad for you, why do so many college students smoke? Will they eventually give up smoking, either as graduation approaches or once they enter...

To evaluate the effect of tobacco cessation brief-intervention (BI) training for lay "health influencers," on knowledge, self-efficacy and the proportion of participants reporting BI delivery post-training. Randomized, community-based study comparing In-person or Web-based training, with mailed materials. In-person and Web-training groups had signi...

This paper draws on fieldwork at the K. Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute (KPJAYI) in Mysore, South India and in the surrounding community. The purpose of the paper is twofold. First, I describe the social life of yoga as experienced by different types of global health tourists who arrive in India with an array of expectations, differing agenda...

Objective: To develop and test messages and a mobile phone delivery protocol designed to influence the nutrition and physical activity knowledge, attitudes, and behavior of adolescents. Design: Nine focus groups, 4 classroom discussions, and an 8-week pilot study exploring message content, format, origin, and message delivery were conducted over...

Patients receiving complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies often report shifts in well-being that go beyond resolution of the original presenting symptoms. We undertook a research program to develop and evaluate a patient-centered outcome measure to assess the multidimensional impacts of CAM therapies, utilizing a novel mixed methods...

Female smoking is predicted to double between 2005 and 2025. There have been numerous calls for action on women's tobacco use over the past two decades. In the present work, evidence about female tobacco use, progress, challenges and ways forward for developing gendered tobacco control is reviewed. Literature on girls, women and tobacco was reviewe...

Interventions tailored to individual smoker characteristics have increasingly received attention in the tobacco control literature. The majority of tailored interventions are generated by computers and administered with printed materials or web-based programs. The purpose of this study was to examine the tailoring activities of community lay health...

Background: Lay health advisors may play an important role in community-based tobacco cessation by providing advice and information about resources and support networks. Little is known about their experiences conducting brief cessation interventions in diverse, real world settings. Objective: To examine the intervention activities of community mem...

To identify types of health influencers in tobacco cessation based on the frequency and characteristics of brief intervention activities. Longitudinal qualitative interviews were completed with 28 individuals posttraining. Four individuals were categorized as Rarely Active, 5 as Active With Family and Friends, 9 as Active in the Workplace, and 10 a...

Previously reported research suggests a dependence syndrome for areca nut use, though well-designed studies are virtually non-existent. The goal of this study was to examine evidence of areca dependence in a sample of areca-only (i.e. no tobacco) chewers using modified measurement scales. A purposive sample of chewers, identified via local informan...

The 3 aims of Project Quit Tobacco International are to design a tobacco curriculum for medical colleges, develop culturally appropriate approaches to clinic and community-based tobacco cessation, and to build tobacco research and training networks within India and Indonesia as a prototype for other countries. This article describes pilot intervent...

To assess the feasibility of delivering brief and disease-centred smoking cessation interventions to patients with diabetes mellitus in clinical settings. We conducted a feasibility study involving two interactive smoking cessation interventions: doctor's advice and visual representation of how tobacco affects diabetes (DA) and DA plus direct refer...

Acute respiratory infection (ARI) is one of the chief causes of morbidity and mortality in the third world. This ethnographic study of ARI in the Philippines draws attention to local knowledge, sign recognition, perceptions of severity, and cultural factors influencing health care seeking. The mix of research methods used to generate data on these...

Little research has focused on women's exposure to secondhand smoke (SHS) in LMICs, local perceptions of SHS risk to women and children, and women's attempts to limit exposure to tobacco smoke in their households. This paper describes a community based survey in Indonesia that investigated these issues as one step in a movement to initiate communit...

Tobacco use is a leading cause of death and of poor pregnancy outcome in many countries. While tobacco use is decreasing in many high-income countries, it is increasing in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where by the year 2030, 80% of deaths caused by tobacco use are expected to occur. In many LMICs, few women smoke tobacco, but stro...

Lawrence Babb has called upon anthropologists studying Indian culture to more closely examine the relevance of great tradition Hindu concepts like karma for the practice of popular Hinduism. He suggests that karma is only one of many explanations for misfortune in India, and that it is an ultimate explanation of misfortune, whereas Hindus are more...

This paper reports on qualitative research on smoking in contexts associated with drinking among college students. Although a plethora of survey research has shown a positive association between smoking and alcohol use, little attention has been given to the utility functions of these co-occurring behaviors. Data are drawn from semi-structured inte...

This chapter describes Project QTI, a pioneering attempt to find out what we need to know to successfully carry out tobacco cessation in clinical and community settings. Formative research carried out in India and Indonesia is described. Both countries have high prevalence rates of tobacco use across all social classes, popular indigenous as well a...

Introduction: Stress and negative affect (NA) figure prominently in theoretical models of smoking initiation, maintenance and relapse, yet few studies have examined these associations among college students. Further complicating examination of these associations, smoking often occurs in the context of other substance use (e.g., alcohol, marijuana)...

Tobacco advertising in Indonesia is among the most aggressive and innovative in the world, and tobacco advertisements saturate the environment. Tobacco companies are politically and financially powerful in the country because they are one of the largest sources of government revenue. As a result, there are few restrictions on tobacco marketing and...

Objectives: The purpose of the study was to characterize practice patterns and tobacco cessation training for three types of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) practitioners (acupuncture/Traditional Chinese Medicine [TCM], chiropractic, and massage). Methods: Researchers administered a mail survey to all licensed acupuncturist, chiropract...

The authors present findings from a qualitative study on postpartum smoking among low-income women ( N = 44) who had been smokers at the onset of pregnancy. Interview data collected after delivery at Months 1, 3, and 6 postpartum are discussed to explore contextual factors contributing to smoking abstinence, relapse, and harm-reduction practices. B...

The benefits of breastfeeding for infants and mothers have been well established, yet rates of breastfeeding remain well below national recommendations in the United States and even lower for women who smoke during pregnancy. Primary goals of this study were to explore contextual factors that contribute to breastfeeding intentions and behavior and...

The authors present findings from a community-based tobacco cessation project that trained lay health influencers to conduct brief interventions. They outline four major lessons regarding sustainability. First, participants were concerned about the impact that promoting cessation might have on social relationships. "Social risk" must be addressed d...

Unlabelled: The present study sought to evaluate the day-to-day patterns of tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana use among first-year college students in the United States. Using 210 days of weekly time-line follow-back diary data collected in 2002 to 2003, the authors examined within-person patterns of use. The sample was 48% female and 90% Caucasian....

Retrospective self-report data indicate that early cigarette use episodes may be important predictors of smoking. Unfortunately, recall of early experiences are confounded with current smoking. The current study is the first to examine early cigarette use episodes (EUEs) prospectively in novice smokers (less than 15 lifetime cigarettes). Smoking am...

Many studies have reported that adolescent girls and young women smoke to control their weight. The majority of these studies are cross-sectional and report on correlational data from quantitative surveys. This article presents data from ethnographic interviews with 60 smokers, interviewed in high school and in follow-up interviews at age 21. Contr...

This article presents findings from a qualitative study of 53 low-income women who were smokers at the onset of pregnancy. Study participants were interviewed during pregnancy to document smoking trajectories and factors contributing to, or undermining, harm reduction and quit attempts. Thirty percent of women quit smoking completely, 43% engaged i...

To explore Indonesian physician's smoking behaviours, their attitudes and clinical practices towards smoking cessation. Cross-sectional survey. Physicians working in Jogjakarta Province, Indonesia, between October and December 2003. 447 of 690 (65%) physicians with clinical responsibilities responded to the survey (236 men, 211 women), of which 15%...

Although it is widely acknowledged among adult smokers that increases in smoking are often precipitated by stressful events, far less attention has been given to smoking during times of stress among youth. To address this gap by drawing attention to the social utility of smoking in contexts associated with stress among college students. Face-to-fac...

Cigarettes have been socially engineered to become potent symbols. Therefore, they need to be understood as cultural products invested with cognitive and emotional salience as well as nicotine delivery devices engineered to create a population of dependent users. In this paper, we look at the symbolism of cigarettes, but unlike many researchers exa...

•Council on Anthropology and Reproduction Initiative Lynn M Morgan

In developing nations where reductions in tobacco use have not been realized, it is critical that health professionals be encouraged to abstain from tobacco use. Data on tobacco use among health professionals in India are limited. We conducted cross-sectional surveys among 110 male medical school faculty (MSF), 229 physicians (67% male), 1130 medic...

Project Quit Tobacco International is a pioneering attempt to develop culturally appropriate approaches to tobacco cessation within the health sectors of India and Indonesia. An overview of the formative research that contributed to intervention development is presented followed by a discussion of the research design adopted to evaluate the introdu...

Ethnographic research, including interviews, focus groups, and observations were conducted to explore gendered dimensions of smoking among low level smokers, including the acceptability of smoking in different contexts; reasons for smoking; the monitoring of self and friends’ smoking; and shared smoking as a means of communicating concern and empat...

This study was undertaken to evaluate the association between patterns of day-to-day smoking and drinking among first year college students. Using 210 days of weekly time-line follow-back diary data, the authors examined the within-person relationships between smoking and drinking. Bivariate time series procedures were utilized. Findings revealed a...

1 The journal's style utilizes the category substance abuse as a diagnostic category. Substances are used or misused; living organisms are and can be abused. Editor's note. *Correspondence:

Many studies have reported that adolescent girls and young women smoke to control their weight. The majority of these studies are cross-sectional and report on correlational data from quantitative surveys. This article presents data from ethnographic interviews with 60 smokers, interviewed in high school and in follow-up interviews at age 21. Contr...

This paper examines popular perceptions of tobacco products and describes patterns of use among college youth in Karnataka, India. Data are drawn from 25 key informant interviews and six focus groups with male and female college students, interviews with shopkeepers, observational data on youth tobacco consumption, and a college-based survey. The s...

This article describes how qualitative social science research has and can contribute to the emerging field of drug and alcohol studies. An eight-stage model of formative-reformative research is presented as a heuristic to outline the different ways in which qualitative research may be used to better understand micro and macro dimensions of drug us...

This article describes how qualitative social science research has and can contribute to the emerging field of drug and alcohol studies. An eight-stage model of formative-reformative research is presented as a heuristic to outline the different ways in which qualitative research may be used to better understand micro and macro dimensions of drug us...

Researchers interested in measuring tobacco use and dependence among youth face several formidable challenges. These challenges include: most existing measures have been developed for adult samples and may not be suitable for adolescent respondents; surveys must be relevant to different youth subcultures and to both genders; questions must be devel...

This paper reviews the history of marketing of tobacco to women in the United States, describes current U.S. and Asian marketing strategies, outlines the changing roles of women in the Asia region as reflected in marketing, reviews research on how marketing affects tobacco use and makes recommendations for action.

A gender perspective contributes to a better understanding of the epidemiological trends, social marketing strategies, economic policies, and international actions relating to women and the tobacco epidemic. Evidence is provided in this article for the negative impact of tobacco use by women and of passive smoking on the health of women and childre...

This article, written by an anthropologist who has studied the culture of teenage girls, explores influences on their sense of self, including those of peers, parents, and the media. Educators and parents can play important roles in helping young people navigate successfully through adolescence. (Author/MKA)

Recognizing the significance of cultural aspects in the practice of medicine, this book places a strong emphasis on the social structure, customs, and history of the indigenous population and its ramifications on health care providers. The book also considers the econo-cultural influences on the way medicine is practiced. By including chapters that...

To use qualitative and quantitative findings to describe patterns of smoking experimentation and initiation among adolescent girls. Ethnographic in-person interviews, focus groups, telephone interviews, and a survey questionnaire were used over a one-year period. The paper reports on cross-sectional data drawn from a three-year longitudinal study....

Purpose: This study posits a distinction between "watching what you eat" and dieting behaviors in a sample of adolescent females. Findings suggest that the dichotomy of dieter/nondieter fails to capture a range of healthful behaviors practiced by many adolescent girls. Methods: Anthropologic and nutritional research methods were used in this stu...

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Discusses the ideology that promotes dieting as a way of life, accompanies technical fix diet products, fosters self-dissatisfaction and envy of others, and leads to objectification as well as a commodification of self. Focusing on teenage girls, it is argued that the pursuit of beauty, inclusive of a desire for thinness, plays an important role. T...

In this paper we address a topic crucial to the field of family planning, yet rarely identified as a subject for research: cultural perceptions of fertility. Data from two ethnographic contexts will be presented: South Kanara District, Karnataka State, India and Low Country, Southwest Sri Lanka. A case study which sparked our curiosity in the cultu...

The approach to nutrition education described here emphasizes communicating through analogy and metaphor derived from immediate experience. The analogic method fosters a participatory, problem-solving process that integrates, rather than compartmentalizes, the knowledge acquired. (SK)

The contingency between notions of ethnophysiology and the folk dietetics of pregnancy are examined in a region of South India. Attention is focused on lay perceptions of essential body processes and health concerns during pregnancy. Preventive and promotive health strategies employed during pregnancy by the rural poor which involve diet are consid...

et Soon-Young Yoon 5 Une dearche tenant compte des diffé rences entre hommes et femmes permet de mieux saisir les tendances é pidé miologiques, les strateies de marketing social, les politiques é conomiques et les actions internationales dans le contexte des femmes face à l'é pideie de tabagisme. L'article apporte, s'il en é tait besoin, la preuve...

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hawaii. Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 74-77). Photocopy.