What is your best downward sprial strategy?

I guess a lot of us sooner or later finds ourselves in a downward sprial where most or all statistics are basically good but where more villagers die than migrate/grow up leading to a situation where production cannot be upheld and more people die and so on. What is your best strategy for handling that downwards spiral?

My current village has been in constant decline for several years now, slowly loosing more than 100 villagers in total. The statistics for the village looks resonable but more villagers die than gets added to the village. I missed that suddenly all wood choppers had left leaving the village with out fire wood resulting in 60 villagers passing.

Stats:

  • Population: 1385 (down from ~1450)
  • Food: 11
  • Happiness: 99%
  • Available housing: ~1300
  • Yearly income: ~23.000.-