Health expenditure, child and maternal mortality nexus : a comparative global analysis
Date
2018-07
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
BioMed Central
Abstract
Background: This paper provides empirical evidence on how the relationship between health expenditure and
health outcomes varies across countries at different income levels.
Method: Heterogeneity and cross-section dependence were controlled for in the panel data which consist of 161
countries over the period 1995–2014. Infant, under-five and maternal mortality along with life expectancy at birth
were selected as health outcome measures. Cross-sectional augmented IPS unit root, panel autoregressive distributed
lag, Dumitrescu-Hurlin and Toda-Yamamoto approach to Granger causality tests were used to investigate the relationship
across four income groups. An impulse response function modelled the impact on health outcomes of negative shocks
to health expenditure.
Results: The results indicate that the health expenditure and health outcome link is stronger for low-income compared
to high-income countries. Moreover, rising health expenditure can reduce child mortality but has an insignificant
relationship with maternal mortality at all income levels. Lower-income countries are more at risk of adverse impact on
health because of negative shocks to health expenditure. Variations in child mortality are better explained by rising
health expenditure than maternal mortality. However, the estimated results showed dissimilarity when different
assumptions and methods were used.
Conclusion: The influence of health expenditure on health outcome varies significantly across different income levels
except for maternal health. Policymakers should recognize that increasing spending has a minute potential to improve
maternal health. Lastly, the results vary significantly due to income level, choice of assumptions (homogeneity, crosssection
independence) and est
Description
CITATION: Rana, R.H., Alam, K. & Gow, J. 2018. Health expenditure, child and maternal mortality nexus: a comparative global analysis. BMC International Health and Human Rights, 18(29):1-15, doi.org/10.1186/s12914-018-0167-1.
The original publication is available at https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/
The original publication is available at https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/
Keywords
Health expenditure, Health outcomes, Maternal mortality, Life expectancy, Maternal health
Citation
Rana, R.H., Alam, K. & Gow, J. 2018. Health expenditure, child and maternal mortality nexus: a comparative global analysis. BMC International Health and Human Rights, 18(29):1-15, doi.org/10.1186/s12914-018-0167-1.