The impact of economic downturns on health and mortality

It is well-documented that state-level death rates are pro-cyclical in the U.S and in many other countries. We use regional Norwegian data 1977-2008 and find very similar pro-cyclical patterns in Norway. In trying to better understand the mechanisms, we use individual level registry data for all Norwegian residents 1977 - 2008. Recent U.S. studies have argued that the pro-cyclicality is largely related to external factors like less reliable health care or more motor vehicle fatalities during economic upturns. We too find indications that
external factors could be important, as the pro-cyclicality is more pronounced for individuals drawing disability pension than those not drawing disability pension. While previous studies have been focusing on the associations between unemployment and concurrent mortality, we attempt to also explore the relevance of previous unemployment for current mortality.

Objectives: We investigate the relationship between socio-economic status of urban currently married women and utilization of safe motherhood practices in EAG states.Data and Method- We used cross-sectional data from third round of District Level Household & Facility Survey-3 (DLHS) conducted in 2007-08. The analysis is based on 16,158 currently married women. The dependent variables in the analysis are utilization of safe motherhood practice. Utilization of safe motherhood includes those women who received full ANC, safe delivery and visited by any health professional within 42 days of delivery .The independent variables are: age of the respondent, place of residence, educational status, work status in last 12 months, religion, wealth quintile and caste of the respondents. Cross-tabulation and logistic regressions models have been used to fulfil objectives of the study Conclusion: The likelihood of utilization of safe motherhood practices for urban currently married women increases for those women who had 10 or more years of education (OR= 7.3; p<0.0) as compared to not educated women. Exposure of health related issues were more likely (OR= 2 p<0.0) to have utilization of safe motherhood practices.

Indonesia is expected to face rapid population aging in the near future, yet most the expected elderly population are still vulnerable to poverty. In order to economically survive in the prolonging old-age life , health is vital for the elderly. One popular method of maintaining health is to do self-medication. This paper tries to analyze the nature of self-medication for the elderly Indonesians, using inferential and empirical method. The inferential method uses observations of IFLS 2007 data for respondents aged 45 years above, regressed by Heckman selection bias (two-step) model. Using several controlling variables, the regression result indicates self-medication is almost perfectly inelastic for the elderly Indonesians. And an empirical result done in 2012 showed that self-medication is favorable for elderly Indonesians, yet an increase in income will lead elderly Indonesians to change the most favored medication. The results indicate that self-medication is an inferior good for maintaining health of the elderly Indonesians.

The World Health Organization considers that the world is experiencing a pandemic of diabetes mellitus. Diabetes is one of the major health problems which accounts for great healthcare cost. Arredondo et al (2001, 2005) found an average cost range for diabetes from 613 to 887 USD. Besides, future estimates show increments between 10 and 15% in institutions. Methods: We used three National Health Surveys. These surveys are representative at a national and state level. Subjects were considered to have diagnosed diabetes if they had been previously diagnosis by a medical provider. For the estimation of expenditure we used the hospital discharges by diabetic people 65 years old and more, as well as information on budgets diabetes exercised in public health institutions. Preliminary Results: The diagnosed diabetes is increased over time. In 2000 16.9% of adults 65 + had been diagnosed six years later the proportion increased to 17.4% and is 25%. In 2000, 26.7% had five years or less with the diabetes diagnosis. The chronic complications of diabetes are: 39.5% suffering heartburn Discussion: It is recognized that diabetes is one of the major chronic diseases. These predictions must urge the Mexican health system to establish attention programs and improve diabetes care.

Agriculture is the single largest source of employment in India and nearly 60 percent of Indian population depends on agriculture for their livelihood. Today, Indian agriculture is facing crisis and the Indian farmers are trapped in a vicious circle of crop loss, low price and indebtedness that forces many farmers to commit suicide. Increasing incidence of farmer’s suicide is an issue of great concern in India. Using data from Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India, by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), this paper examines the incidence and trends in farmers’ suicide in India as well as states and the linkages between indebtedness and farmers’ suicides. The findings suggest that, during 2001-2011, about 184,169 farmers have lost their lives by committing suicide in India. In 2011 alone, about 14,027 farmers have committed suicide. i.e., “in every 31 minutes a farmer is committing suicide”. The western region of the country that comprises of states like Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan accounted for the highest number of farmer suicides (38 percent) followed by southern region (37 percent) constituted by the five contiguous states of south India viz. Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Goa.

Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) is one of the most serious gram-positive bacteria causing several infections. Because of its intrinsic ability to develop resistance to antibiotics, nowadays only few drugs can be confidently mentioned for the treatment of S. aureus infections. The study aimed to investigate the antibiotics susceptibility pattern of S. aureus among patients.
A cross-sectional study was conducted on antibiotic susceptibility of S. aureus among patients. A total of 323 wound and nasal swab specimens were collected and inoculated on mannitol salt agar (Oxoid) and incubated at 37oC for 18 to 24 hours. Gram-staining and specific biochemical tests were used to identify the study organism. Sensitivity of the isolates to ten commonly used antibiotics was determined by Kirby-Bauer antibiotic sensitivity testing method. The isolates were found to be highly resistant to penicillin G and cephalothin (98.8%; each). Chloramphenicol, amoxicillin/clavulanic acid and oxacillin were also resisted by 53.1%, 50.6% and 38.3% of the isolates, respectively. Least resistance was obtained for ciprofloxacin, vancomycin and gentamycin. There was higher S. aureus prevalence for inpatient isolates than outpatients’. The isolates showed high resistance and multidrug resistance pattern to several combinations of the tested antibiotics.

We analyze the multi-faceted effects of poverty on the subjective well-being of individuals. Using panel data on more than 42,500 individuals living in Germany from 1993 to 2010 we show that self-reported satisfaction with life decreases as a result of both contemporaneous and past episodes of poverty. The intensity of contemporaneous poverty also plays an additional negative role. In addition, poor individuals prefer income stability so that persistent poverty is less harmful than the same number of years of low income experienced with movements in and out of poverty. The negative effects of being in poverty are permanent and do not vanish over time: individuals do not adapt to poverty, and, even when subsequently out of poverty, they report lower satisfaction with life. These effects differ by population subgroups.

This paper examines inequality in utilization of reproductive health care services among economic stratum using data from DLHS-3. It is also attempts to identify the variation in barriers of service utilization by economic status and its effect. Gini concentration index has been used to capture the inequality and multivariate analysis has been carried out to find out the effect of economic status on main reason for non-utilization. Rich-poor disparity is more pronounced among rural, illiterate and Muslim women. Rural-urban disparity reduces with improved economic status, especially for delivery care utilization. Disparity between non-literate and highly literate becomes less in the richer group for utilizing safe delivery, while similar picture is found for Hindu-Muslim disparity in full ANC utilization. ‘Not necessary’ is the main reason for non-utilization of ANC and delivery care. Women from poorest stratum are 2 times more likely to state ‘not necessary’ for non-utilization compared to richest counterpart.

Introduction
Most studies have reported that health condition is negatively affected by the economic crisis. Korea affected by Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s, finally the government requested to the International Monetary Fund for the emergency relief funds. The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between self-rated poor health and employment status among people aged 40–59 in Korea, focusing particularly on its association with the Asian and the Global economic crisis. Although the study (Khang et al. 2005b) reported that the self-rated poor health in Korea was widened before and after the Asian economic crisis, this study explored the self-rated poor health of only the overall population and did not consider issues related to social stratification.
Results
Overall, trends in socioeconomic health inequalities in Korea still exist in education. But, the gap between regular and irregular employment status has notably narrowed after its peak in 2005.
Discussions
This study was one of the few approaches in Korea to evaluate health inequalities including the period of second economic crisis on self-rated poor health. On the future work, the suggestions mentioned on discussion need to be verified throughout long-term studies. We also regard to use another data like death rate or prevalence disease.

Level of poverty has been reduced substantially in past decades in India but the economic development has also raised the chance of women being overweight or obese. By using third National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3) data in this study an effort has been made to examine evidence of economic inequality in the vulnerability of underweight vis-à-vis overweight/obese women in reproductive ages in the Indian states. The macro evidences illustrate that the women from affluent families are associated with high prevalence of overweight/obesity and low economic status associated with escalating prevalence of underweight women. The micro evidences from multivariate analysis strengthens such causational patterns of greater prevalence of underweight among high parity women contrasted by significantly higher prevalence of overweight and obesity among low parity women. The results point out that under-nutrition is still a major problem; at the same time there is an emerging challenge of dealing with the problem of overweight and obesity. Declining fertility, rising income, changing occupational profile are possible contributors to such dramatic rise in double burden of malnutrition but these risk factors are disproportionately distributed, specially to the defenselessness of poor.