The effect of household and community on school attrition: an analysis of Thai youth

pre-printWe analyze school attrition among youth in Kanchanaburi province, Thailand. We find that family investments in schooling are shaped by both household and local community contexts. There is an enrollment advantage for girls across different households and communities. We find that youth whose mothers have migrated and youth in immigrant households are at greater risk of leaving school. Attrition is negatively associated with household educational and economic resources. The local labor market, especially the supply of professional and managerial work, positively affects family investment in children's education. For girls, but not boys, the odds of leaving school are lower in communities dominated by manufacturing and services occupations, which disproportionately employ young women. Our findings highlight the obstacles to achieving universal secondary schooling completion in societies characterized both by entrenched inequalities as well as new inequalities brought about by uneven development, feminization of labor, migration, and other processes related to globalization

Migrants in countries in crisis. Thailand case study: migration and natural disasters – the impact on migrants of the 2011 floods in Thailand

This case study examines the immediate and longer-term consequences of the 2011 floods in Thailand on migrants from Myanmar, Cambodia, Lao PDR and Vietnam. It was conducted as part of the EU-funded project Migrants in Countries in Crisis: Supporting an Evidence-Based Approach for Effective and Cooperative State Action. Under this project, six case studies were prepared. The current report represents one of these. Due to the nature of the 2011 flood disaster in Thailand and the relatively fast rebound of the Thai economy, most of the migrants affected by the crisis were still in Thailand at the time this research was done. For many of them, the longer-term effects of the disaster stemmed mainly from their experiences during the crisis, the choices they made to cope and other events in the aftermath of the floods, particularly changes in Thailand’s migrant registration system

Validation and factor structure of the Thai version of the EURO-D scale for depression among older psychiatric patients

Objectives: To assess the concurrent and the construct validity of the Euro-D in older Thai persons

Psychological wellbeing, physical impairments and rural aging in a developing country setting

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>There has been very little research on wellbeing, physical impairments and disability in older people in developing countries.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A community survey of 1147 older parents, one per household, aged sixty and over in rural Thailand. We used the Burvill scale of physical impairment, the Thai Psychological Wellbeing Scale and the brief WHO Disability Assessment Schedule. We rated received and perceived social support separately from children and from others and rated support to children. We used weighted analyses to take account of the sampling design.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Impairments due to arthritis, pain, paralysis, vision, stomach problems or breathing were all associated with lower wellbeing. After adjusting for disability, only impairment due to paralysis was independently associated with lowered wellbeing. The effect of having two or more impairments compared to none was associated with lowered wellbeing after adjusting for demographic factors and social support (adjusted difference -2.37 on the well-being scale with SD = 7.9, p < 0.001) but after adjusting for disability the coefficient fell and was non-significant. The parsimonious model for wellbeing included age, wealth, social support, disability and impairment due to paralysis (the effect of paralysis was -2.97, p = 0.001). In this Thai setting, received support from children and from others and perceived good support from and to children were all independently associated with greater wellbeing whereas actual support to children was associated with lower wellbeing. Low received support from children interacted with paralysis in being especially associated with low wellbeing.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In this Thai setting, as found in western settings, most of the association between physical impairments and lower wellbeing is explained by disability. Disability is potentially mediating the association between impairment and low wellbeing. Received support may buffer the impact of some impairments on wellbeing in this setting. Giving actual support to children is associated with less wellbeing unless the support being given to children is perceived as good, perhaps reflecting parental obligation to support adult children in need. Improving community disability services for older people and optimizing received social support will be vital in rural areas in developing countries.</p

Commuting: The human side of Bangkok's transport problems

The worst of Bangkok's renowned environmental problems, traffic, has been studied a great deal as an infrastructure problem. In administrative systems, it is constructed and measured in terms of road networks, lack of mass transit, and road travel speeds. The human side of transport, the behaviour patterns of those experiencing and contributing to the traffic problems, has not been studied previously. Our qualitative data shows that traffic, and its associated problems of noise and air pollution, have a diverse set of social impacts on health, stress, families and communities. These are experienced in different ways by different people, depending where they live in the city, their socio-economic status - related to modes of transport used - and the adaptive strategies they undertake. Our survey data, however, shows that the popular image of shockingly long travel times is experienced by only a minority of travellers. Further, far from being a problem people will avoid at all costs, it seems that commuting may be an "elastic" decision, traded against relatively inelastic choices of home and workplace. Our work recommends a fresh approach to the study of traffic and transport problems, with greater recognition of the human choices and experiences involved

Determinants of institutional maternity services utilization in Myanmar.

BackgroundMaternal mortality is a persistent public health problem worldwide. The maternal mortality ratio of Myanmar was 250 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2017 which was the second-highest among ASEAN member countries in that year. Myanmar's infant mortality rate was twice the average of ASEAN member countries in 2020. This study examined factors influencing institutional maternity service utilization and identified the need for improved maternal health outcomes.MethodsA cross-sectional study design was used to examine the experience of 3,642 women from the 2015-16 Myanmar Demographic and Health Survey by adapting Andersen's Behavioral Model. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were applied. Adjusted odds ratios and 95% confidence interval were reported in the logistic regression results.ResultsThe findings illustrate that the proportion of women who delivered their last child in a health/clinical care facility was 39.7%. Women live in rural areas, states/regions with a high levels of poverty, poor households, experience with financial burden and the husband's occupation in agriculture or unskilled labor were negatively associated with institutional delivery. While a greater number of ANC visits and level of the couple's education had a positive association with institutional delivery.ConclusionThe determinants of institutional delivery utilization in this study related to the institutional facilities environment imply an improvement of the institutional availability and accessibility in rural areas, and different states/regions, particularly Chin, Kayah and Kachin States- the poorest states in Myanmar. The poverty reduction strategies are urgently implemented because problems on health care costs and household economic status played important roles in institutional delivery utilization. The ANC visits indicated a significant increase in institutional delivery. The government needs to motivate vulnerable population groups to seek ANC and institutional delivery. Moreover, education is crucial in increasing health knowledge, skills, and capabilities. Thus, improving access to quality, formal, and informal education is necessary

A workplace intervention program and the increase in HIV knowledge, perceived accessibility and use of condoms among young factory workers in Thailand

Vulnerability to Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection among factory workers is a global problem. This study investigated the effectiveness of an intervention to increase AIDS knowledge, perceived accessibility to condoms and condom use among young factory workers in Thailand. The intervention was a workplace program designed to engage the private sector in HIV prevention. A cross-sectional survey conducted in 2008 to measure program outcomes in factories in Thailand was used in this study. The workplace intervention included the development of policies for management of HIV-positive employees, training sessions for managers and workers, and distribution of educational materials and condoms. A multi-level analysis was used to investigate the effect of HIV/AIDS prevention program components at the workplace on HIV/AIDS knowledge, perceived accessibility to condoms and condom use with regular sexual partners among 699 young factory workers (aged 18–24 years), controlling for their individual socio-demographic characteristics. Interventions related to the management and services component including workplace AIDS policy formulation, condom services programs and behavioral change campaigns were found to be significantly related to increased AIDS knowledge, perceived accessibility to condoms and condom use with regular partners. The effect of the HIV/AIDS training for managers, peer leaders and workers was positive but not statistically significant. With some revision of program components, scaling up of workplace interventions and the engagement of the private sector in HIV prevention should be seriously considered

Integrative analysis of city systems: Bangkok 'man and the biosphere' programme study

This paper argues that integrative analysis of city systems helps us to see beyond their current environmental and social problems to underlying causes, and it suggests different opportunities for possible interventions. Focusing on a single aspect of a city or its people without understanding its context risks interventions which treat symptoms rather than causes and whose short-term 'solution' often means that the problem returns in the same or perhaps a different form. Our integrative analysis of Bangkok suggests that the root of its environmental (and some social) problems lie in decision-making structures and a political culture which has historically fostered self interested decisions by stakeholders rather than the public interest. This has produced a land use and built environment configuration that largely ignores the functioning of the natural flood plain ecosystem and the well-being of residents. People adapt their behaviour to their environment but often in ways that have serious cumulative impacts on the city. This analysis suggests that problems need to be addressed at their source: the nature of decision-making by stakeholders, at every level. This requires the engagement of all parties inside and outside government, the elite and otherwise. To the extent that planning has a viable role, the focus needs to be on the source of the impacts, such as national development planning, rather than in sectors such as transport, where the problems are evident

The effect of asset-based wealth inequality on problem drinking among rural Thai elders:A prospective population-based cohort study

Evidence on the link between income inequality and alcohol-related problems is scarce, inconclusive and dominated by studies from the developed world. The use of income as a proxy measure for wealth is also questionable, particularly in developing countries. The goal of the present study is to explore the contextual influence of asset-based wealth inequality on problem drinking among Thai older adults. A population-based cohort study with a one-year follow-up was nested in a Demographic Surveillance System (DSS) of 100 villages in western Thailand. Data were drawn from a random sample of 1104 older residents, aged 60 or over (one per household) drawn from all 100 villages, of whom 982 (89%) provided problem drinking data at follow-up. The primary outcome measure was a validated Thai version of the Alcohol-Used Disorder Identification Test for problem drinking. Living in areas of high wealth inequality was prospectively associated with a greater risk for problem drinking among older people (adjusted odds ratio 2.30, 95% confidence intervals 1.02–5.22), after adjusting for individual-level and village-level factors. A rise in wealth inequality over the year was also independently associated with an increased risk of problem drinking (adjusted odds ratio 2.89, 95% confidence intervals 1.24–6.65). The associations were not explained by the social capital, status anxiety or psychosocial stress variables. The data suggest that wealth inequality and an increase in inequality across time lead to a greater risk of problem drinking. Efforts should be directed towards reducing gaps and preventing large jumps in inequality in the communities. Further research should investigate the effect of asset-based inequality on various health risk behaviors and its specific mediating pathways