Summary:

Non-Māori (settler) New Zealand in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries had reputation as ‘working man’s paradise’ with extensive social mixing, low industrialization, relatively low population densities, and high home ownership rates. However, some degree of social gradient remained, along with a (smaller) urban mortality penalty. The traditional polio model depicts a positive relationship between the disease and socioeconomic status (SES), with higher SES associated with exposure to the poliovirus beyond infancy/early childhood and therefore a higher mortality rate.

The research question addressed in this presentation is whether New Zealand’s SES gradient was strong enough, and linked closely enough to living conditions (and thus differential virus exposure), to produce differential polio mortality. This study used occupation data from the New Zealand Census and non-Māori death registrations for the polio epidemics of 1916, 1924–25, and 1936–37. I discuss my results suggesting that among non-Māori New Zealanders, polio mortality reflected the flatter social gradient, and reflect on how this work fits into broader anthropological questions and the place of archival work in biological anthropology and the anthropology of infectious disease.

Speaker bio:

Dr Heather Battles completed her BA in Anthropology and History at the University of Victoria in BC, Canada in 2005, before moving to Ontario for graduate studies. She completed her Masters in the Anthropology of Health and her PhD in Biological Anthropology, both at McMaster University. Her doctoral dissertation used historical records to examine the shifting social, geographical, and demographic patterns of polio mortality in southern Ontario in the early 20th century. She took up her current position in Biological Anthropology at the University of Auckland in 2014, beginning her ongoing research into polio in New Zealand. She takes an inter-/multi-disciplinary approach to the study of epidemics, combining historical demography, infectious disease ecology, medical anthropology, and social history.