Modeling interactions among environment, behavior, and mortality in the Western James Bay Cree

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The effects of infectious disease epidemics on the demographic history of Aboriginal peoples of the Americas were strongest at different times in different regions of the hemisphere. In northern Canada, substantial changes in demographic structure and disease experiences occurred during the 19th century and extend well into recent historical times, providing a wealth of documents on these changes. The primary focus of this research is to explore the health transitions in the 19th and 20th centuries in four Western James Bay Cree communities (Moose Factory, Fort Albany, Attawapiskat and Kashechewan) in the central Canadian subarctic and to address the question: what was the relative impact of infectious diseases on the health of these communities and how consistent and homogeneous were changes in health and disease in Aboriginal communities during this time? This research addresses this issue through a broad examination of the historical interaction of environment, behavior and mortality in the four communities. The project has two primary components: historical analyses of records for the four Cree communities (funded separately) and development and analysis of mathematical models that can be used to explore factors leading to changing mortality patterns in these communities from 1820 to 1970. Data and results from the first component will be used in the mathematical modeling activities, which focus on assessing the effects of changes in social structure, economic activities, and environment on both infectious disease transmission and on general health of the four study communities. This project brings together researchers from the United States and Canada with differing expertise in the areas of demography, ethnohistory, mathematical epidemiology and ethnography. The project allows not only for the exploration of the patterns of mortality over time in several Western James Bay Cree communities, but also for the proposal and testing of specific hypotheses regarding the principal mechanisms for these changes. The multifaceted approaches of the project will provide significant contributions to understanding the importance of shifts in economic and social activities on the health and well-being of aboriginal populations. The project will result in opportunities for students at both the graduate and undergraduate levels to learn specialized and useful techniques not commonly found in anthropology curricula, especially in the areas of mathematics and statistics. It also facilitates an ongoing international institutional collaboration between McMaster University and the University of Missouri-Columbia and extends that collaboration to the University of Manitoba.