Jung Han Park, MD, MPH, DrPH, Soon Woo Park, MD, PhD, and Sang Won Lee, MD, PhD. Department of Preventive Medicine, Catholic University of Daegu School of Medicine, 3056-6 Daemyung 4 Dong, Nam Gu, Daegu, 705-718, South Korea, 82-53-650-4474, jhpark@cu.ac.kr

In late 1997, Korea had suddenly fallen into economic crisis due to the foreign exchange shortage. A nation-wide structural reform, mainly downsizing, took place in both public and private sectors and produced mass unemployed. Such crisis exerted a negative influence on the well-being and health of the people and crude mortality rate was increased in that period.

This study was aimed to identify the causes of death that are sensitive to the economic crisis and demographic characteristics of the vulnerable population.

We used national mortality data and number of the unemployed for 6 years, from 1995 to 2000. Annual age-sex adjusted cause-specific morality rate was calculated to check the mortality rate trend. Number of cause-specific mortality for each season was presented graphically together with the number of the unemployed and examined the concurrence of the two curves.

Number of the unemployed began to increase from 400,000 in late 1997, reached over 1 million from February 1998 to March 2000, and decreased thereafter. Crude mortality rate curve had changed concurrently with the number of the unemployed curve. Four groups of causes of death were identified according to the changing pattern. The first group, nearly coincided with curve of the unemployed, included suicide, sepsis, malnutrition, etc. The second group, delayed increase by a year, included cardiovascular disease and chronic pulmonary disease. The third group, inverse pattern to the unemployed, included traffic accidents. The last group, with no change, included malignancy and respiratory tuberculosis. Further analysis for socio-demographic characteristics of the deaths is underway.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize the impact of economic crisis on the mortality of population.
• List the causes of death that are sensitive to economic crisis.
• Discuss the social and health policies to protect the health of people in time of economic crisis.

Keywords: Death, Developing Countries

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.