The effect of the economy on health risks

Abstract

Theories suggest that there is long term impact of growing economies to population’s health since the people live longer and healthier. There are also some theories supporting that in the short term, the economic boom can boost mortality rates and busts can reduce them. Greece is an excellent example to review the impact of economy conditions to health risks and mortality, since Greek economy over a period of 40 years has expanded drastically from 1980 to 2008 but it has also faced a great recession from 2009 onwards. In the thesis we have examined the impact of the economy to the mortality by considering the relation on the changes in mortality indices to the changes in GDP for the same period. The mortality in Greece had a procyclical trend till the recession of 2009, as it has increased over a period of 26 years, when the economy expanded, and the GDP became more than three times higher. The mortality trend showed an increase of 0,2% but it is not as significant as the GDP increase of more than 300%. The mortality rate after 2009 that the Greek economy face a sizable recession, increase and this is in contract with theories that claim the mortality rate during recession decrease. It is important to note that the age group 20-29, 30-39 and 40-49 show an accelerated decrease in the mortality rate at this period but there is an increase in the actual mortality of the group 80-above that move the trend of the total population upwards.