Impact of strongEconomic Fluctuationstrong Yothin - Mahidol University.pdfVIP

JOURNAL OF POPULATION AND SOCIAL STUDIES Volume 18 Number 1 July 2009 49 Impact of Economic Fluctuation and 1997 Thailand Economic Crisis on Cirrhosis Cause of Death Yothin Sawangdee Piyawat Katewongsa Wimontip Musikaphan Introduction The correlation between the economic situation, mortality and sickness among a population has been happening since Thomas R. Malthus and his father, Daniel Malthus, discussed about the main cause of human misery. In the discussion, Malthus stressed population explosion was the main cause while his father emphasized the failure of government policy rather than the population explosion (Stone, 1984). Thus, this paper examines the belief of Malthus’s father rather than that of Malthus himself who had written an essay namely “The Principle of Population” in 1798. Important information mainly stated that food famine, mortality and disease among the population were not only caused by natural disasters but could be a negative consequence from a society’s economic failure which was related to his father’s main concept (Weeks, 1978). The obvious example was the mortality and cases of illness among the population in Spain between 1850 and 1990. The economic fluctuation in Spain brought about the death of many people by various illnesses such as water-borne diseases, diarrhea, air-borne diseases, respiratory diseases etc (Reher and Sanz-Gimeno, 2000). Another example had happened in South Korea in 1990 when se