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This study examines the influence of cash income and subsistence production on dietary patterns in a village in the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea. Data on food frequencies were collected from thirteen households on sixty-nine randomly chosen days over an eleven-month period in 1977. Frequency of consumption of foods in several key subsistence and purchased food groups is used as a surrogate measure of dietary quality. Analysis indicates that frequency of consumption of garden greens, legumes, and subsistence crops in general is positively related to involvement in subsistence agriculture. No significant relationships are revealed between frequency of consumption of energy-dense and protein-rich purchased foods and household income. Instead, income is strongly and positively associated with expenditures on alcoholic beverages. Purchased foods enhance dietary quality, but villagers' consumption of store-bought foods is highly seasonal.

In St. Vincent and the Grenadines in the Eastern Caribbean, export banana production is expanding at the same time that local food production is declining and food imports are rising. When export agriculture is accompanied by such changes, the general assumption in much of the development literature, including political ecology, is that export agriculture has undermined local food production, leading to insufficient food supplies and thereby requiring increased food imports, This study, based on twelve months of fieldwork during 1988-89, employs a politicalecological perspective and asserts that in the case of the Vincentian banana industry, these assumptions are not valid. Conflicts between export agriculture and local food production in relation to the allocation of land and labor that could undermine food production are, for the most part, not of major significance, Unequal control over land has contradictory effects on the relation between export production and local food product~on, reflecting the influence of both political-economic and environmental variables. Declines in food production in banana-producing areas are related primarily to the c o n t r~t i n g pofiticaf-economic contexts of producing and marketing local food crops and bananas produced for export. Changing dietary preferences and problems in wage labor recruitment also help account for decreases in food output. A political-ecological perspective should highlight not only the impact of political-economic relationships on resource-use patterns but afso the significance of environmental variables and how their interaction with political-economic forces influences human-environment relationships.

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La aparición y persistencia de las enfermedades son inherentemente fenómenos geográficos, y programas para prevenir ambos factores son más eficaces a una escala local. Específicamente, las enfermedades transmitidas por mosquitos a menudo pueden prevenirse con precauciones personales e individuales, sin embargo, la acción de prevención efectiva generalmente resultada de programas eficaces de salud pública que enseñan medidas preventivas. Este estudio utiliza los principios de la ecología de la enfermedad y el Modelo de Creencias en Salud para examinar las percepciones de las enfermedades transmitidas por mosquitos y acciones preventivas en el suroeste de Virginia, EE.UU. utilizando una encuesta. Los resultados sugieren un bajo conocimiento de las enfermedades transmitidas por mosquitos entre los participantes, a pesar de los recientes casos de encefalitis de La Crosse y la introducción del virus del Nilo Occidental en las aves. Además, el género, la edad, y el tiempo residiendo en el condado son vaticinadores significativos del conocimiento, la percepción de la eficacia de las medidas preventivas, y los comportamientos sanitarios, re-spectivamente. Estos resultados apoyan la aplicación del Modelo de Creencias en Salud dentro de un marco de la ecología de las enfermedades para estudiar las enfermedades infecciosas y ayudar en la adaptación de programas locales de salud pública.