| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 公共衛生碩士學位學程 === 105 === Asian financial crisis of 1997 and global financial tsunami of 2008 have been affecting many countries, not only in economic development level, but people’s life quality and health directly and indirectly. According to the literature, there were controversy discussions about the impact of economic crisis on health, some though the recession brought health an inverse affection, others supported that economic turndown was good for people’s health.
We collected reports from domestic and foreign studies about the relationship between economic crisis (Asian financial crisis of 1997 and global financial tsunami of 2008) and health, and tried to figure out the correlation between economic crisis and health、unemployment Rate、suicide Rate. Our study found that during the two economic downturn, most of the countries faced an increase of unemployment rate. The unemployment rate in Taiwan did not increase during the Asian financial crisis, yet it increased dramatically from 3.92% to 5.85% during the global financial tsunami of 2008. In terms of suicide rate, during the Asian financial crisis, the rate was higher in Taiwan compared with South Korea (13.0 vs. 10.0 per 100,000 populations), however the changes were minimal. However, during the global financial tsunami, the suicide rates were stable in Taiwan (14.7 per 100,000 populations) but increased significantly in South Korea from 19.4 to 26.3 per 100,000 populations.
During the economic downturn, government plays a significant role in maintaining population health. For example, Thailand and Greece were forced to cut health budget significantly which shriveled the function of basic public health system and increased the prevalence of infectious diseases. This lesson should be learned for other countries. The health budgets in Taiwan were stable during the two financial downturn, and the public health and medical care system was basically unaffected. However, the share of public fund accounting for the National Health Expenditure is decreasing in Taiwan which deserves further attention.
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