Environmental Factors Affecting Health Indicators in Sub-Saharan African Countries: Health is Wealth

Abstract

Sub-Saharan African countries faced severe environmental hazards that affect the health and wealth of the countries. The study utilized number of environmental factors including carbon dioxide emissions, energy use, fossil fuel energy consumption, land used under cereal production, household final consumption expenditures and water sanitation facility that have a promising impact on African's health. The study considered four health variables including external resources for health, health expenditures per capita, life expectancy at birth and out-of-pocket expenditures for seven selected Sub-Saharan African countries namely, Botswana, Cameroon, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Sudan for panel data estimations, over the period of 1995-2013. The results confirmed that environmental factors affect the African's health i.e., carbon dioxide emissions increases the health expenditures per capita, while it decreases the external resource of health in a region. Fossil fuel energy consumption increases the external resources of health and life expectancy while it decreases the out-of-pocket expenditures of the African countries. Life expectancy significantly decreases the external resource of health. Finally, inadequate water sanitation increases the healthcare expenditures while it decreases the external resources of health and life expectancy in Sub-Saharan African countries.

Dynamic linkages among energy consumption, air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and agricultural production in Pakistan: sustainable agriculture key to policy success

“…The policy should be devised to conserve natural environment by using sustainable instruments that would limit the macroeconomic factors for healthy and wealthy life. Zaman et al (2015a) examined the health and wealth relationship in Sub-Saharan African countries and confirm the strong correlation between them. Ozturk (2015a) emphasized the need to control domestic and global air pollutants for mitigating the climatic concern across the countries.…”

The Relative Effects of Economic Growth, Environmental Pollution and Non-Communicable Diseases on Health Expenditures in European Union Countries

“…By analyzing Sub-Saharan African Countries, Zaman et al [45] found out that although increasing consumption of fossil fuel energy is associated with GDP growth, and implicitly the possibility of additional health allocations and increased life expectancy, it is also associated with carbon dioxide emissions, which increase spending on health per capita. On one hand, increases in life expectancy significantly decrease the health care provisions of per capita health levels; on the other hand, life expectancy is negatively affected by poor sanitation and low environmental protection spending levels, which also adds to the budgets dedicated to healthcare expenditures.…”

Impact of Economic Growth, Energy Use and Population Growth on Carbon Emissions in Sub-Sahara Africa

“…Numerous number of researchers [1][2][3], have examined the impact of economic growth, energy use and population on carbon emissions in Sub-Saharan Africa. The relationship between economic growth, energy use, population and environmental pollution has been a topic of concern for several years [27,28]. Different methods and strategies have been applied by researchers to examine the relationship between economic growth and energy use and secondly, to investigate the relationship between economic growth and carbon emissions to validate the legitimacy of the EKC hypothesis.…”