Occupational Health & Safety

Biography

Biography: Dusadee

Abstract

This qualitative research is aimed to study the impact of work and work place of small business towards their quality of life with the UHC in Thailand. The research method used in-depth interview, participatory observation with more than 50 street food sellers in Bangkok. The results revealed : Most of them (more than70 %) were female, less than high school education, middle age (30-60 years old) with children in the family and were in crucial debt that they had to pay daily/monthly average of 20 % of interest with principle. They invested with small amount of money and borrowed some from illegal loan. Because they had no credit or any bank accounts. Their work places were along the street in downtown or crowded communities. The impact of work places were air pollution from near by motorcycle queues, dusty streets, sometime road accidents, noisy places, and heat. Sometimes, they moved to the other places and carrying heavy food containers with the thought that may be, it could make more money. They got up very early in the morning to buy raw materials from the markets, prepared food and spending time to sell their food products almost the whole day with little time to rest. The impact to their quality of life; 1) physical health, back and knee pain, skin irritation from cooking food and heat etc, 2) emotional health, stress, worried about financial support and daily payment in the family, future strain, 3) social health, no social security, family disparities, because of no time to take care children., some of their partners were heavy drinkers, their children have to leave the schools and some were drug abused, etc. Universal health coverage in Thailand had been set up since 2001 from the concept of “Health for All”. As of now, 99 % of the Thai population is covered through a comprehensive healthcare package that ranges from health prevention and primary care, to hospitalization due to traffic accidents to renal replacement therapy and access to ART treatment for HIV. This UHC has help people who have no security insurance to become more secure in their life. The suggestion of the research are to sustain the UHC policy along with good strategies of health prevention and health promotion to these group of people and create the finance support systems for them to stop the “shark loan” and vicious cycle of their life. Keywords: Small business, UHC,