Moving beyond a Snapshot to Understand Changes in the Well‐Being of Native Amazonians

Forces such as the opening of trade, globalization, multinational corporate resource extraction, urbanization, acculturation, and colonization catalyze economic, ecological, and sociocultural change, which can threaten the well‐being and habitat of native Amazonians. Understanding these forces is of paramount importance to improve the well‐being of native Amazonians and to foster the conservation of biological diversity, yet most analyses of these forces rely on cross‐sectional data. Though adequate to describe the association between variables at one point in time, cross‐sectional data do not allow one to estimate changes in well‐being over time. We collected data annually during five consecutive years (2002–2006, inclusive) from a foraging and farming society of native Amazonians in Bolivia (Tsimane’) to estimate annual rates of change for seven indicators of adult well‐being. Indicators encompassed both objective and subjective measures of well‐being that included economic, health, psychological, and s...