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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the prevalence and factors related to cognitive impairment among hill-tribe older people in Chiang Rai province, Thailand.

A cross-sectional study was carried out amongst 459 hill-tribe older people aged 60 years and above. A Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) Thai 2002 version was used for cognitive screening. A questionnaire and medical records were used for demographic and clinical data collection while descriptive statistics were used to analyze characteristic data. Potential factors related to cognitive impairment were analyzed by using univariate logistic regression analysis.

The prevalence of cognitive impairment amongst the participants was 49.89 percent (95% CI 45.32%, 53.47 percent). Factors related to cognitive decline included no occupation (OR=1.49, 95% CI 1.10–2.03, p<0.04) and a history of amphetamine use (OR=1.57, 95% CI 1.09–2.33, p<0.04).

Cognitive decline should be a cause for concern amongst Thai hill-tribe older people, especially amongst those in the group with a history of amphetamine use. However, Thai health care professionals need to be aware of the potential cultural bias in the MMSE Thai 2002 version as a cognition test targeted at the hill-tribe population as the questionnaire may not provide a true reflection of their cultural experience and background.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the pattern and perception of alcohol drinking among the Lahu people in northern Thailand.

A qualitative method was used to elicit information on the patterns and perceptions of alcohol drinking amongst the Lahu tribespeople. Question guidelines had been developed from literature reviews and approved by three experts in the field of public health and alcohol studies. A total of 21 participants of different ages and sexes from 3 separate Lahu villages were invited to provide information. All interviews were taped and transcribed before analysis. A content analysis was used.

Lahu people begin alcohol consumption at an average of 12 years, with males usually beginning before females of the same age. Consuming alcohol is perceived to be a sign of adulthood and is also used as a means of gaining social acceptance from others in the community. Alcohol is consumed throughout the year with young and old, male and females, describing varied reasons for drinking. Income, parental behavior, and peer pressure contributes to the onset of alcohol drinking among young Lahu people. Several factors contributed to the use of alcohol among the Lahu people such as sex, age, occupation and income, peer pressure, taste and price as well as cultural adaptations amongst the farming community that play a significant role in the frequency of alcohol consumption amongst the Lahu community.

The results should support the development of peer education on the negative impact of alcohol use among the young people, and development of a community agreement on reducing excessive alcohol use in the Lahu community should be implemented.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the factors associated with DF occurrence in recurrence villages in Chiang Rai, Thailand.

A case-control study was conducted between June 2017 and December 2017. A validated questionnaire was used to detect the factors associated with recurrence of DF. χ² and logistic regression were used to detect the associations between variables at α=0.05.

In total, 213 cases and 436 controls were recruited into the analysis. Cases were recruited from 20 DF recurring villages, while controls were recruited from 20 non-DF recurring villages in Chiang Rai province. At community level, three variables were associated with recurrence of DF; size of the village (p=0.007), number of villagers (p=0.009), tribe (p=0.043) and distance to a hospital (p=0.003). Three variables were associated with DF at personal and family levels in multivariate model: children whose parents worked as daily employees, and government officers and traders were more likely to have DF 1.56 (95%CI=1.22–2.48) and 4.31 (95%CI=4.66–9.38) times greater than of those whose parents’ worked as agriculturists, respectively; children aged less than one year were 2.89 (95%CI=2.17–4.33) times more likely to have DF than those aged=6 and children who were under standard growth and over standard growth were more likely to have DF than those standard growth 1.61 (95%CI=1.18–2.53) and 7.33 (95%CI=4.39–10.37) times, respectively.

This is the original research article which was conducted in detecting the factors associated with recurrence of DHF in Northern Thailand.

This paper aims to bridge the literatures on social enterprises and human resource management to examine the recruitment practices, specifically the recruitment channels, which are used by social enterprises to attract workers and how and why these practices differ from those used by more mainstream organizations.

It uses the cross-case analysis approach and evaluates four different social enterprises in Thailand. These four social enterprises are located in different industries, including food and beverages, textiles and garments, printing and publishing and entertainment and media. The case study evidence draws on semi-structured interviews, field visits and observations and a review of archival documents and Web resources.

Through these case studies, this paper proposes that social enterprises typically use sub-stream or alternative recruitment channels that differ from those used by more mainstream organizations to attract qualified workers whose beliefs and attitudes are consistent with the objectives of social enterprises, to avoid severe competition in the labor market and to foster the internal development of their employees over time.

One limitation of this research is its methodology. Because this research is based on case studies of four social enterprises across industries in Thailand, it does not claim generalizability to all social enterprises and their recruitment channels. Rather, the results of this research should lead to further discussion of how and why social enterprises are able to recruit qualified candidates, solve financial and human resources constraints and survive severe competition among organizations in the labor market.

This paper also provides managerial implications for human resources practitioners, founders and top managers of social enterprises, not only in Thailand but also in other countries across the globe. First, these human resources practitioners, founders and top managers can use sub-stream or alternative recruitment channels to recruit employees to their social enterprises because these channels should help them attract qualified candidates whose beliefs, attitudes, knowledge, skills, experience and work performance fit with the philosophy and objectives of social enterprises. Second, they can use mainstream recruitment channels only when they have sufficient budgets to support this activity because these channels are expensive and may not support the dual missions of social enterprises. Third, they may attempt to search for an alternative source of potential employees, such as the blind and the disabled, to alleviate the problem of skill shortages at the occupational level and at the national level as a whole.

This paper provides policy implications for the government of Thailand and the governments of several other emerging market economies where the problem of skill shortages is particularly severe. Specifically, these governments should pay attention to solving the problem of occupational-level skill shortages to alleviate severe competition among several types of organizations in the labor market.

First, the findings in this paper extend the literature on human resource management, specifically on recruitment and selection practices, regarding how and why small and emerging organizations such as social enterprises can compete with mainstream organizations to survive severe competition in the labor market. Second, this paper contributes to the literature on social enterprises, specifically regarding how social enterprises resolve the issue of financial constraints to access skilled employees whose identification is consistent with the objectives of social enterprises. Finally, social enterprises in the under-researched country of Thailand are frequently overlooked in the literature. The four social enterprises in this paper are located in a variety of industries, including food and beverages (the Doi Tung Development Project and Doi Chaang Coffee), textiles and garments (the Doi Tung Development Project), printing and publishing (Butterfly Publishing House) and entertainment and media (Payai Creation). These industries, especially the printing and publishing industry and the entertainment and media industry, are also understudied in the literature on human resource management.

To date, intersectional feminist criminological enquiry concerned with exploring junctions of gender and ethnicity amongst incarcerated women, has mainly come from studies undertaken in western nations. In this chapter, we present findings from research undertaken in Thailand that explored incarcerated ethnic minority women’s backgrounds, situational contexts surrounding their criminalization and criminal justice system experiences, with particular attention paid to women’s time in prison. Our purpose was to examine how gender and ethnicity intersected, impacting the lived experiences of criminalized ethnic minority women before and during their incarceration. Findings revealed the ways in which these women are marginalized inside and outside prison walls. On the outside, the women struggled with patriarchal systems of power, both within and beyond their communities. They were subjugated as women and by discourses of ethnic othering. Under-education, poverty, living with state, community, familial and intimate partner violence, trauma, and other adversity were key aspects of the women’s pre-prison lives and created the contexts from which they came into conflict with the law. The women faced challenges in accessing justice and, once imprisoned, gender and ethnicity intersected in several domains, to impact their carceral experiences.

The Jingpo ethnic minority is located almost entirely in Dehong Prefecture in the west of Yunnan. This prefecture borders Myanmar, shares a number of natural characteristics with it, and is dissected by rivers which form the upper reaches of the Irrawaddy River. Its climate is influenced by monsoons originating in the Indian Ocean. The total population of this minority is about 118,000 and they are mainly located in hilly areas. This paper examines the rural economy of the Jingpo people, traditional factors influencing their management of local forest resources such as their religious beliefs, and local means of governance. The Jingpo people possess valuable indigenous knowledge about their local forest resources which should be taken into account in the quest for the sustainable economic development of this community. Today, slash‐and‐burn agriculture is causing economic sustainability problems for the Jingpo. In addition, land ownership problems and conflicts about property rights threaten their conservation of forests and entail economic sustainability problems as explained in this paper. Whether or not improved access to markets and the use of more productive techniques will relieve the situation and reduce poverty among the Jingpo remains to be seen. Currently, the incidence of poverty among the Jingpo is high, they obtain little education and pursue mainly a subsistence lifestyle. This situation is not dissimilar from that for many hill tribes in parts of India and in Southeast Asia.

Chiang Rai being an earthquake-prone city, it is essential to raise awareness about earthquake safety and readiness, especially amongst the elderly population who spend most of their time at home. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the earthquake preparedness of elders in relation to knowledge, attitude and practice.

This was an analytic cross-sectional study. Research data were collected from 480 elders of 60 years old and above. The research instruments were questionnaires about knowledge, attitude and self-assessment of practices in earthquake situations. Data were analyzed by number, percentage and a χ² test.

Of participants interviewed, 39.4 percent were aged between 60 and 66 years old. Overall, 94.0 percent of them had already experienced an earthquake, with 79.4 percent having experienced it in 2014. Participants had a good level of knowledge and attitude toward earthquake safety. Their practices toward earthquake readiness, however, were insufficient due to the lower practice scores (<12), especially found in the high seismic zone. The score level of knowledge, attitude and self-assessment of practice in earthquake situations showed that there is a difference in statistical significance (p<0.05).

This study focuses attention on the need to increase levels of preparedness. Safety instructions and earthquake drills should be promoted and supported in order to prepare elders for an earthquake in the study area. Research findings identified in this study will help to address the specific needs of the elderly when implementing an earthquake disaster risk reduction plan.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to debates on the value of indigenous knowledge for disaster risk reduction. Recent international policy papers advocate the importance of indigenous knowledge and calls for its recognition. The paper aims to explore these issues in the everyday practices of disaster response by indigenous peoples and surrounding actors.

The paper is based on a total of seven months ethnographic research in indigenous communities in Thailand and the Philippines. The Thai communities had experienced minor disasters, whereas the Philippine communities were recently hit by a major killer typhoon.

In both countries the authors found that indigenous knowledge is neither completely local, nor homogenous, nor shared. The findings caution against a view that indigenous knowledge is grounded in a long tradition of coping with disasters. Coping is embedded in social practice and responsive to change. Positive labelling of indigenous practices can help to render communities more resilient.

The research was exploratory in nature and could be replicated and expanded in other indigenous peoples’ communities.

Rather than understanding indigenous peoples as simultaneously vulnerable and resilient, it calls for a more comprehensive approach to indigenous knowledge and practices around disaster.

The limitations are shown of uncritically ascribing indigenous communities a close relation to nature. It may be unfounded and de-politicises indigenous struggles.

This paper approaches indigenous knowledge issues from the point of view of indigenous communities themselves.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to debates about environmental policy in developing countries by examining how far sustainable livelihoods approaches (SLAs) to development may allow an alternative and less universalistic approach to environmental changes such as soil erosion.

The paper provides an overview of debates about environmental narratives and SLAs. There are tensions in both debates, about how far local institutions represent adaptations to predefined environmental risks, or instead enable a redefinition of risks according to the experience of poor people. In addition, there is a tension in how far SLAs should be seen as a fixed institutional design, or as a framework for organizing ideas and concerns about development. The paper presents research on soil erosion in Thailand as a case study of how SLAs can redefine risks from erosion for poor people.

SLAs provide a more contextual analysis of how environmental changes such as soil erosion represent risk to different land users, and hence SLAs can make environmental interventions more relevant for reducing vulnerability. But this approach can only succeed if intervener agencies are willing to consider challenging pre‐existing environmental narratives in order to empower local livelihoods.

The paper adds to existing research on SLAs by exploring the implications of SLAs for redefining environmental assumptions. The paper forms part of work aiming to make debates about the politics of environmental knowledge and science more practically relevant within development policy.