Winds of change are sweeping the Pacific Islands. Traditional cooperative systems of resource and labour sharing – the very practices that bind a community together – are being challenged and replaced by the exchange logics of the market economy. How does this massive social upheaval – reforging social relations and introducing new worldviews and behaviors – affect a population’s health and well-being?

The Levuka Study takes place in on the island of Ovalau, Fiji, among all adults aged 18-65 (n = 569) living in two villages and two informal settlements around the town of Levuka. the project recruited 99.56% of households (n=229). From these households, individual surveys collect socio-economic, cooperation, religion, and physical and mental health and well-being data from all adults aged 18-65 years living at these four sites , annually, over a period of three years (2023-2025).

This project is a collaboration between the people of Levuka, Baylor University, the University of Otago, and Victoria University of Wellington.

Data Access

---

Upon completion of the project, anonymized data will be available through this webpage.

Funding

---

This project was funded by the grant titled “The Longitudinal Study of Cohesion and Conflict: Testing Hypotheses of Social and Religious Change in Fiji”. This grant was provided by the Marsden Fund from The Royal Society of New Zealand Te Apārangi (19-UOO-090).