In freelists, informants create an inventory of all the items they know within a given category. Freelists reveal cultural salience and variation in individuals’ topical knowledge. The ease and accuracy of freelist interviewing makes it ideal for collecting data on local knowledge from relatively large samples. This method, however, does not work well with broad topical areas: People tend to omit some items and cluster responses as they unpack mental subcategories. Successive freelisting can reduce and redefine topics (domains), thus focusing the content of interviews. In oral freelists, interviewers should prevent bystanders from contaminating the informant’s list, and written freelists are advisable in literate communities. Responses from freelists should be cross-checked with informal methods as much as practicable, as in this Caribbean case. With proper attention to detail, freelisting can amass high-quality ethnobotanical data.

Herbal medicine is the first response to illness in rural Dominica. Every adult knows several "bush" medicines, and knowledge varies from person to person. Anthropological convention suggests that modernization generally weakens traditional knowledge. We examine the effects of commercial occupation, consumerism, education, parenthood, age, and gender on the number of medicinal plants freelisted by individuals. All six predictors are associated with bush medical knowledge in bivariate analyses. Contrary to predictions, commercial occupation and consumerism are positively associated with herbal knowledge. Gender, age, occupation, and education are significant predictors in multivariate analysis. Women tend to recall more plants than do men. Education is negatively associated with plants listed; age positively associates with number of species listed. There are significant interactions among commercial occupation, education, age, and parenthood, suggesting that modernization has complex effects on knowledge of traditional medicine in Dominica.

Frequent and unregulated use of antimicrobials (AM) in livestock requires public health attention as a likely selection pressure for resistant bacteria. Studies among small-holders, who own a large percentage of the world’s livestock, are vital for understanding how practices involving AM use might influence resistance. We present a cultural-ecological mixed-methods analysis to explore sectors of veterinary care, loosely regulated AM use, and human exposure to AMs through meat and milk consumption across three rural to peri-urban Tanzanian ethnic groups (N = 415 households). Reported use of self-administered AMs varied by ethnic group (Maasai: 74%, Arusha: 21%, Chagga: 1%) as did consultation with professional veterinarians (Maasai: 36%, Arusha: 45%, Chagga: 96%) and observation of withdrawal of meat and milk from consumption during and following AM treatment (Maasai: 7%, Arusha: 72%, Chagga: 96%). The antibiotic oxytetracycline was by far the most common AM in this sample. Within ethnic groups, herd composition differences, particularly size of small-stock and cattle herds, were most strongly associated with differences in lay AM use. Among the Arusha, proxies for urbanization, including owning transportation and reliance on “zero-grazing” herds had the strongest positive associations with veterinarian consultation, while distance to urban centers was negatively associated. For Maasai, consultation was negatively associated with use of traditional healers or veterinary drug-shops. Observation of withdrawal was most strongly associated with owning technology among Maasai while Arusha observance displayed seasonal differences. This “One-Health” analysis suggests that livelihood and cultural niche factors, through their association with practices in smallholder populations, provide insight into the selection pressures that may contribute to the evolution and dissemination of antimicrobial resistance.

The evolutionary origin of human pair-bonds is uncertain. One hypothesis, supported by data from forgers, suggests that pair-bonds function to provision mothers and dependent offspring during lactation. Similarly, public health data from large-scale industrial societies indicate that single mothers tend to wean their children earlier than do women living with a mate. Here we examine relations between pair-bond stability, alloparenting, and cross-cultural trends in breastfeeding using data from 58 "traditional" societies in the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS). Analyses show that stable conjugal relationships were associated with significantly later weaning among the societies in the SCCS. The relationship between pair-bond stability and age at weaning was not mediated by women's ability to provision themselves or women's kin support. Availability of alloparental care was also inversely related to age at weaning, and the association was not significantly reduced after controlling for frequency of divorce. This study indicates that among a woman's kin relationships, a pair-bond with a child's father is especially supportive of breastfeeding. These cross-cultural findings are further evidence that human pair-bonds may have evolved to support lactation.

Antibiotic use and bacterial transmission are responsible for the emergence, spread and persistence of antimicrobial-resistant (AR) bacteria, but their relative contribution likely differs across varying socio-economic, cultural, and ecological contexts. To better understand this interaction in a multi-cultural and resource-limited context, we examine the distribution of antimicrobial-resistant enteric bacteria from three ethnic groups in Tanzania. Householdlevel data (n = 425) was collected and bacteria isolated from people, livestock, dogs, wildlife and water sources (n = 62,376 isolates). The relative prevalence of different resistance phenotypes is similar across all sources. Multi-locus tandem repeat analysis (n = 719) and whole-genome sequencing (n = 816) of Escherichia coli demonstrate no evidence for hostpopulation subdivision. Multivariate models show no evidence that veterinary antibiotic use increased the odds of detecting AR bacteria, whereas there is a strong association with livelihood factors related to bacterial transmission, demonstrating that to be effective, interventions need to accommodate different cultural practices and resource limitations.

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