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An empirical assessment of the relationship between Official Development Aid and child mortality, 2000–2015

  • Original Article
  • Published:
International Journal of Public Health

Abstract

Objectives

To analyze the effect of Official Development Aid (ODA) dollars on child mortality over the course of the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals initiative.

Methods

The relationship between child mortality and Official Development Aid over the duration of the Millennium Development Goals (2000–2015) is examined here using a longitudinal panel of country-level data from the World Bank and the United Nations. An Ordinary Least Squares regression approach was used with country-level fixed effects. Models were estimated for the full sample and by Human Development Index development strata (high, medium, and low developed countries) with clustered standard errors.

Results

ODA appears to be most strongly associated with decreases in child mortality in Medium Developed Countries. Every one dollar per capita increase in ODA is associated with a 0.035 decrease in child deaths per 1000 births.

Conclusions

Significant gains were made in decreasing child mortality over the last 15 years. The need for more progress remains. Allocation of ODA to developing countries can be an effective policy tool in achieving public health goals.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Health Policy and Management, University of Georgia, 100 Foster Road, 211 B Wright Hall, Washington, DC, 30602, USA

    Taylor Fahy Winkleman

  2. Department of Health Policy and Management, University of Georgia, 100 Foster Road, 211D Wright Hall, Washington, DC, 30602, USA

    Grace Bagwell Adams

Authors
  1. Taylor Fahy Winkleman
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  2. Grace Bagwell Adams
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Grace Bagwell Adams.

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This study was not funded by any grant.

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

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This article is part of the special issue “Development and Public Health”.

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Winkleman, T.F., Adams, G.B. An empirical assessment of the relationship between Official Development Aid and child mortality, 2000–2015. Int J Public Health 62, 231–240 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-017-0940-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-017-0940-2

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