Examining the relationship between human resources and mortality: the effects of methodological choices

Pablo Villalobos Dintrans () and Claire Chaumont ()
Additional contact information
Pablo Villalobos Dintrans: Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Claire Chaumont: Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

International Journal of Public Health, 2017, vol. 62, issue 3, No 5, 370 pages

Abstract: Abstract Objectives Relationship between human resources for health and mortality remains inconclusive despite numerous studies published on the topic in the last decades. This paper investigates how and why methodological trade-offs implicitly made by researchers when using macro-data can in part explains this puzzling lack of agreement. Methods Using data from the Global Health Observatory, we build a model of the relationship between human resources and mortality, which we progressively alter by changing its scope, variables and analysis period. Then, we compare results among themselves to isolate the impact of methodological choices from other changes in the data. Results Results demonstrate how methodological choices linked to (1) the analysis period, (2) the definition of health inputs, health outcomes and control variables and (3) the choice of specific variables as proxy for human resources and health outcomes affects the relationship between human resources and health outputs. Conclusions Results presented highlights the need for complementing existing macro-analysis with other analytical strategies, for better documenting methodological choices in research studies, as well as for further supporting countries’ efforts to produce reliable and consistent data.

Keywords: Human resources; Health; Mortality; Methodology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00038-016-0935-4 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:ijphth:v:62:y:2017:i:3:d:10.1007_s00038-016-0935-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/00038

DOI: 10.1007/s00038-016-0935-4

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Public Health is currently edited by Thomas Kohlmann, Nino Künzli and Andrea Madarasova Geckova

More articles in International Journal of Public Health from Springer, Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().