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

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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.

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Notes

  1. External resources for health are funds or services in kind that are provided by entities not part of the country in question. The resources may come from international organizations, other countries through bilateral arrangements, or foreign nongovernmental organizations. These resources are part of total health expenditure (World Bank 2014).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, University of Sargodha, Canal Campus, Lahore, Pakistan

    Khalid Zaman

  2. Department of Business Administration, Leads Business School, Lahore Leads University, New Garden Town, Lahore, Pakistan

    Aqeel Ahmad

  3. Department of Geography, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

    Tengku Adeline Adura Tengku Hamzah & Mariney Mohd Yusoff

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  1. Khalid Zaman
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  2. Aqeel Ahmad
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  3. Tengku Adeline Adura Tengku Hamzah
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  4. Mariney Mohd Yusoff
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Correspondence to Khalid Zaman.

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Zaman, K., Ahmad, A., Hamzah, T.A.A.T. et al. Environmental Factors Affecting Health Indicators in Sub-Saharan African Countries: Health is Wealth. Soc Indic Res 129, 215–228 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-015-1100-9

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