The consequences of population health for economic performance

Assessing the Relative Efficiency of Health Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa Using Data Envelopment Analysis

“…Health is now seen as a component of human capital the same way as education and nutritional status [1]- [4]. According to these authors, everyone has an initial health stock that depreciates with age, but can be maintained or even appreciated by combining individual health care and education, and according to the time available.…”

Income Distribution and Health Status: Econometric Evidence from OECD Countries

“…The coefficient of INCOME in model (2) is statistically significant at the 1% level indicating that income does play an important role in explaining variation in health status among the countries included in the study [29,31,32,33] . This result shows that as income increases, infant mortality decreases and this effect leading to an improvement the level of health status.…”

“…Theoretically, health status is influenced by the level of absolute income (INCOME), because higher level of income leads to a greater ability to afford better medical attention, nutrition, sanitation, housing and healthcare [29,32,33] . Some economists contend that higher income enhance technological progress in health care and dissemination of knowledge pertaining to new medical technology [31] . It has been observed by labor economists that at low levels of income, there is often a high rate of absenteeism among workers as they suffer from frequent illness due to malnutrition and lack of preventive care.…”

Maternal-child health

“…Alsan et al (2008) argue that income is less important in improving health outcomes than other factors such as technological progress. Increases in GDP do not necessarily improve child health status.…”