台灣歷經三十多年經濟蓬勃發展，帶動了社會繁榮進步與國民生活品質提升，使得國人健康水準大幅改善。然而目前國內粗死亡率雖趨於平緩，但是尚存在些許起伏，我們推估這很有可能與整體經濟情勢有關。因此適逢台灣經濟環境險惡的時刻，關心景氣波動與國民健康之間的關聯實為一項刻不容緩的目標。據此，本研究利用民國68-93年行政院衛生署之「死亡証明登記」檔案與民國68-93年行政院主計處「台灣地區社會指標統計年報」，建構台灣地區21縣市死亡率與失業率的長期追蹤資料(panel data), 並透過「固定效果模型」(fixed effect model)分析景氣波動對國民健康產生的衝擊。 實証結果發現，在控制時間效果與各縣市的特徵變數之後(如各縣市性別比率、有偶比率、每人實質所得)，落後一期失業率的增加將會減緩意外事故、肺炎二種生理疾病死亡率。但是經濟持續蕭條，落後二期至六期平均失業率則是不利於國人健康，促使一些慢性疾病死亡率增加的現象。最後，我們亦觀察景氣波動期間民眾心理健康的狀況，結果顯示在經濟興盛的同時，繁忙的工作反而是使得國人內心壓力過大，進而選擇自殺的導火線。 Taiwan has been through repeatedly more than three decades economical vigorous development, causes the national healthy large improvement. At present, the mortality is gradually becoming stable, however there are still some existed fluctuations. We suspect that this phenomenon is closely related to the macroeconomic conditions. Motivated by this reason, we investigate the relationship between the economic fluctuation and the health of the people. In this paper, we establish the panel data of the county’s mortality and county’s unemployment rate for the period 1979-2004, and then we use the fixed effect model to control for heterogeneity of different counties. The results show that under the control of year effects and county characteristic variables, the unemployment rate of lag one year is negatively and statistically significantly correlated with accident, suicide, and lung fatalities. Moreover, if the recessions are lasting for a long time, some chronic mortality would be increased when the average rate of joblessness at lags of two to six years increased.
