Abstract:

The main aim of this study is to evaluate the impacts of economic crises on the public health in Turkey. In this context, the impacts of 1994, 2001 and 2009 economic crisis on 10 indicators related to the public health in Turkey between 1974-2015 were investigated through the ARDL (Autoregressive Distributed Lag) bounds testing approach. As a result of the analyses made, it has been found that 1994 economic crisis affected the 3 of the 10 indicators significantly (p<0.05) in a negative way, namely, under-five mortality rate, crude death rate, crude suicide rate. In addition, there were no significant positive effects of the 1994 economic crisis on any variable (p>0.05). The 2001 economic crisis was found to have a significantly negative effect on 2 out of 10 variables as infant mortality rate and crude suicide rate. On the other hand, it was found that the 2001 economic crisis affected 5 variables significantly positive, which are maternal mortality rate, DPT, polio and measles vaccination rates and, death rates from traffic accidents. For 2009 economic crisis, there was no significant negative health affect (p<0.05). However, the 2009 economic crisis was found to have significantly positive effect on only infant mortality rate (p<0.05). Conclusively, in this study, it has been found that economic crises have both negative and positive impacts on the public health in Turkey. However, it is possible to say that vulnerable people such as infants and children are more affected from economic crises in terms of health. From the results of study, it can be said that the severity of crises, in what way the health-related behaviors will evolve, and the effects on the healthcare system within the scope of policy preference are also important factors in the impacts of economic crises on health.

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