The Effects of Health Status and Child Mortality on the African Economies

Abdalla Sirag (), Arbab Ismail Faris (), Salah Abdelgadir Abdelmagid () and Norashidah Mohamed Nor ()
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Abdalla Sirag: School of Business and Economics Universiti Putra Malaysia 43400 Serdang, Selangor MALAYSIA.
Arbab Ismail Faris: Faculty of Economic, Social and Environmental Studies University of Medical Sciences and Technology Khartoum, SUDAN
Salah Abdelgadir Abdelmagid: Mamoun Behairy Centre for Economic and Social Studies and Researches in Africa Khartoum, SUDAN
Norashidah Mohamed Nor: School of Business and Economics Universiti Putra Malaysia 43400 Serdang, Selangor MALAYSIA.

Jurnal Ekonomi Malaysia, 2022, vol. 56, issue 2, 77-92

Abstract: The current study aims to examine the economic effects of health status. Employing data from 43 African countries, this study utilized the Pooled Mean Group estimation method of the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) for cointegration to analyze the short-run and long-run relationship between health status and economic growth. In assessing the health status, we use life expectancy, infant mortality rates and mortality rate under the age of five measures. The results show that life expectancy in the long term was positively correlated with GDP per capita. In addition, infants and under-five mortality rates for both categories were negatively linked to the degree of long-term economic growth, suggesting a positive correlation between health status and growth. The study contributes to our understanding of the significance of health status as a main ingredient of economic growth in the African continent. Therefore, African policy makers are urged to pay particular attention to their healthcare services and any other factors that can help improve the health of their people.

Keywords: economic growth; infant mortality; life expectancy; panel data; under-five mortality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 I15 O40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ukm:jlekon:v:56:y:2022:i:2:p:77-92

DOI: 10.17576/JEM-2022-5602-6

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