The need for health behaviour and socio-economic research in malaria control in Thailand.

Malaria is still a disease of public health importance in Thailand despite the encouraging downward trend in the number of malaria cases during the past ten years. In the last few years there were still nearly a quarter of million malaria cases detected and about 3,000 malaria deaths yearly reported. The social and economic factors seem to play major roles in keeping low persistent transmission of malaria in certain communities especially those residing in and near forested areas, mountains and foothills in the places not far away from Thai-Kampuchea border in East Thailand and Thai-Burmese border in West Thailand. These communities consist of migrants and local native residents living in newly opened lands for agriculture, and some are remote areas where communication and transportation are inaccessible. Preliminary results on these people revealed some interesting social and economic problems and health behaviour of the people in connection with persistent malaria transmission among them. It is suggested that further investigation should be carried out on the social and economic elements in these communities including migratory pattern, their population characteristics and life, social behaviour, health belief and practice, malaria prone behaviour, etc. in association with malaria transmission among them. The results to be obtained may lead to the effective control measures of malaria in future.