Adam McKay
The Geography of Health in Thailand: An Exploration in the Relationship between Non-Government Organizations and HIV/AIDS © 2013
Developments in both HIV/AIDS research and geography research have provided a foundation on which spatial analyses of the virus can be implemented. This exploratory research applies the spatial statistic AMOEBA to identify high, medium, and low clusters of HIV/AIDS in districts of Thailand. A Chi-Square test finds significant relationships between the identified clusters and the number of non-government organizations (NGOs) in the corresponding district. The Chi-Square was significant for both the male and female subsets of the data. Upon further exploration, two major conclusions are drawn. First, it appears as though there are regional differences between male and female HIV/AIDS in Thailand. Second, the development of NGOs in Thailand may be based on observed infection rates as opposed to population-relative rates. Implications of these conclusions are discussed and future research questions are proposed.