Impacts of health expenditures and environmental degradation on health status-Disability-adjusted life years and infant mortality

Abstract

Introduction: Human health and well-being are intimately related to environmental quality. In this respect, the present study contributes to the existing health economic literature by examining whether public and private health expenditures (PPHE) moderate the incidences of environmental degradation on the health status in Saudi Arabia, particularly disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) and infant mortality.

Methods: Using the fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) method.

Results and discussion: The empirical results revealed that (i) unconditional positive impacts of CO₂ emissions on increasing DALYs and infant mortality; (ii) conditional negative impacts of public health expenditures on DALYs and infant mortality in all the estimated models, whereas global and private expenditure contribute only on reducing infant mortality; (iii) public health expenditure is more effective than private health expenditure in reducing infant mortality; (iv) the effects of the interactions between the indicators of both health expenditures and CO₂ emissions on DALYs and infant mortality are negative and significant only for the specifications relating to public health expenditures, indicating that this later could be employed as a policy or conditional variable that moderates the adverse impacts of carbon emissions on the population's health status. Generally, the study presents an overview of environmental health change's effects and examine how these effects may be reduced through increasing health spending. The study provides recommendations for addressing health status, health expenditures, and carbon emissions, all of which are directly or indirectly linked to the study.

Keywords: carbon dioxide; environmental sustainability; health status; mortality; sustainability.