BaAka women's health and subsistence practices in transitional conservation economies: Variation with age, household size, and food security

Objectives: Using ethnographic interviews and biological measures, this article investigates changing health and nutrition of a hunter-gatherer population transitioning from a forest-based subsistence system to a horticultural and market-driven lifestyle. Methods: This study represents biological and dietary recall data for adult female foragers (18+; n = 60) across two villages, Mossapoula (MS) and Yandoumbe (YDBE), in the Dzanga Sangha Protected Areas (APDS), Central African Republic (CAR). Standard anthropometric measurements (height, weight, skinfolds) and hemoglobin values were collected to assess short-term nutritional status. Results: BMI was similar across all three age classes in YDBE, but differed amongst women of MS (ANOVA; F = 6.34, df = 30, P = 0.005). Values were lowest among the older women in older age class 3 who also had the greatest number of dependents. Overall SS values were significantly negatively correlated with the number of biological children (r = -0.33, P = 0.01) in both villages. Conclusions: Here, we identify older BaAka women, caring for their own children and grandchildren, as particularly vulnerable to economic changes and food insecurity. We found older women, especially those in a community with greater restrictions on access to forest resources to have more dependents, reduced market integration, and low BMI relative to younger women in the population. (C) 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.