The impact of health capital investments on mortality from cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes in Africa: a pooling data analysis

Abstract

Background African countries face serious challenges from infectious diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis due to the weak health systems and the poor infrastructure. Over the last decades, they are undergoing a demographic transition leading to increasing prevalence of non-communicable diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes which their health systems are ill equipped to handle. The prevalence of these chronic diseases is increasing becoming the main cause of mortality in the Africa region. To inform health system responses to these changing patterns of disease, we aimed to assess the effects of health capital investments on chronic diseases mortality in Africa. Methods We use a pooling data covering 40 countries from 2005 to 2021. A system Generalized Method of Moments is adopted as the estimation technique of dynamic panel model. Results The results suggest that health capital investment has a positive effect on chronic diseases mortality reduction in pooling data, independently of gender considerations. Furthermore, rising health capital investments is associated with greater chronic disease mortality rates in low-income countries and reduces in middle/high-income countries. In addition, chronic diseases mortality also depend on urbanization, unemployment, and alcohol and tobacco consumption. Conclusions Findings from this study suggest several main policy orientations, especially policies that aim to increase spending efficiency. The main challenge here is to reconcile current health needs, human resources planning, and available resources.