Housing and Health Transition in Thailand
-
S. Friel
,
A. J. McMichael
Abstract
Over the past half-century, Thailand's health profile has been undergoiog an epidemiologic transition in association with various fundamental societal changes, shifting from one with a predominant burden of communicable disease to one in which noncommunicable diseases and accidents now predominate. The primary question is why have the disease rates in the Thai population changed? Answering this question requires an examination of the underlying transitions in social and contextual factors. This paper explores, using published data, how housing conditions, as one set of environmental health risks, have undergone transition in recent years and how this change maps on the health-transition process. A combination of economic development, urbanization, modernization, and increased health literacy resulted in a range of health-protecting changes in housing design and materials. Pre-eminent among such changes are improvements in household sanitation and in equipment, ventilation, and fuel pertaining to indoor cooking and heating. In tropical countries like Thailand, gains have been made in mosquito-proofing houses and in minimizing open pools of water to combat the risks of malaria, dengue fever, and other mosquito-borne infections. Meanwhile, the growth in shantytown and slum housing around the urban fringe, often in precarious environmental settings, introduced a negative dimension to the evolving profile of housing-related health risks, whereas the urban sprawl of modern residences creates health risks that are due to traffic crashes and the lack of walking in daily transport.
© 2021 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Title
- TABLE OF CONTENTS
- EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION. Housing, Health and Weii-Being: Moving Forward
- Gender Differences in the Relationship between Housing, Socioeconomic Status, and Self-Reported Health Status
- Interventions to Improve Children's Health by Improving the Housing Environment
- Housing and Health in Later Life
- Horne Safety in the UK-A Review of the Influence of Human and Housing Factors
- Investigations into the Indoor Environment and Respiratory Health in Boston Public Housing
- Health Impact of Environmental Tobacco Smoke in the Horne
- Housing and Health Transition in Thailand
- Housing, Urban Development and Health in Latin America: Contrasts, Inequalities and Challenges
- Lead Poisoning in South African Children: The Hazard is at Horne
- Homelessness-On the Health Agenda in Wales?
- Residential Environment and Health: A Review of Methodological and Conceptual Issues
Articles in the same Issue
- Title
- TABLE OF CONTENTS
- EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION. Housing, Health and Weii-Being: Moving Forward
- Gender Differences in the Relationship between Housing, Socioeconomic Status, and Self-Reported Health Status
- Interventions to Improve Children's Health by Improving the Housing Environment
- Housing and Health in Later Life
- Horne Safety in the UK-A Review of the Influence of Human and Housing Factors
- Investigations into the Indoor Environment and Respiratory Health in Boston Public Housing
- Health Impact of Environmental Tobacco Smoke in the Horne
- Housing and Health Transition in Thailand
- Housing, Urban Development and Health in Latin America: Contrasts, Inequalities and Challenges
- Lead Poisoning in South African Children: The Hazard is at Horne
- Homelessness-On the Health Agenda in Wales?
- Residential Environment and Health: A Review of Methodological and Conceptual Issues
