Forests and deforestation have important implications for health from ecological, social, economic and political points of view. These implications are examined for the case of malaria, a major public health problem which is difficult to control for various biomedical and entomological reasons. In addition, there are significant socio‐economic and political factors, particularly internal and international movements of population, which need to be examined for their role in the spread of malaria. Examples drawn from Southeast Asia and specifically Thailand are discussed in this paper.
"This article focuses upon circulation, or reciprocal flows of people, with specific reference to Third World societies." Aspects considered include attempts to standardize terminology and to formulate typologies of population movement; the development of explanatory models of circulation and modernization, social networks, family welfare, and capitalism; and "the transfer of methods and concepts to societies and populations different from those from which they initially evolved and in which they were first tested."
Movements of people in a variety of forms and at a variety of scales play an important role in the malaria equation of parasites-vectors-people. They contribute to the transmission of malaria, spreading infection and exposing non-immune people to risk of infection, and they complicate measures for the control of malaria. The nature of malaria risk is outlined and then relationships between movements and risks are illustrated in regional examples (Southeast Asia, south India, Latin America and tropical Africa). Some consideration is given to cases of 'imported' malaria in the largely malaria-free temperate lands of Europe. While the signi cance of population movements is recognised, they and other human factors (e.g. distribution and composition of population, social organisation and economic activities) do not receive attention comparable to that given to malaria parasites and vectors. More interdisciplinary approaches by biomedical and social scientists are needed.
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