Thais have better health now

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Thais have better health now
By The Nation 2011-06-11

Longevity among Thai people is greater but the number of teenage mother has tripled, a Bangkok seminar on Thai people's life quality and health was told yesterday.

Citing information on body examination collected by the Health Systems Research Institute (HSRI), Assoc Prof Chuenruethai Kanjanajittra said Thai people tended to have acquired good health through better public heath services, improved mental and physical health and financial stability to afford good foods and post-retirement healthcare.

Personal health setbacks were also reported, like people at 15 or older became overweight and fat (34.7 and 32.1 per cent respectively), and the number of mothers under 20 years of age had increased from 5.6 per cent in 1958 to 15.5 per cent in 2008, especially among mothers aged 10-14 years.

The number of successful suicides has decreased from 8.6 to 5.7 per 100,000 citizens in the past decade, while econonic gap between the rich and the poor had not changed much, in the past 20 years. Rich people generate incomes around 54-59 per cent of GDP while the poor's total income was no more than 5 per cent.

"The richest people have incomes 11.3 times of those poorest," she added.