Health transition among Pacificans: unpacking imperialism

What and who defines health? In the Pacific at least, health is not only an individual's state of well-being. It also refers to the positive state of the social body i.e. how people within a community interact with each other and with their environment to produce positive and desired effects. Even death can be viewed as a positive stage in human life if it facilitates the achievement of well-being as one transit or translocates to the next stage of 'eternal bliss'. The pursuit of health and well-being has resulted in many challenges over time in many communities. Health transition has been seen as a phenomenon that can be defined by the various eras of disease occurrence. Various morbidity and mortality indicators are used to measure these. According to health transition theorists, this phenomenon is linear and similar for all societies. However, this linear approach is not cognizant of the many dimensions of social, mental, physical and spiritual well-being that encompasses the life and death of Pacificans. This paper attempts to tease out the various forces that have influenced the health transition phenomenon in the Pacific. Specifically, it argues that the forces of imperialism, colonialism and globalization have largely influenced health transition in the Pacific in a manner that is to some extent, both unfavorable and oppressive. It raises the difficulty of using morbidity and mortality as measures of transition in societies where people do not die but are believed to just translocate to another life. The paper ends by suggesting alternate ways of looking at the multidimensional processes of health changes in the Pacific.