|
|
|
|
|
Hae-Joo Chung, MSc, Department of Health Policy and Management, School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Universtiy, # 11-D-4, 1620 McElderry St., Baltimore, MD 21205, 443 527 6298, hachung@jhsph.edu and Carles Muntaner, MD PhD, Behavioral and Community Health, University of Maryland, 655 West Lombard Street, Baltimore, MD 21201.
Economic factors such as income inequality or poverty rates are becoming accepted as potential determinants of population health; however, the impact of political and welfare state factors have yet to be fully explored. Therefore, to evaluate the impact of political structure and welfare state characteristics on birth, infant and child related indicators we conducted an ecological study using unbalanced time-series data of 19 advanced countries for the years from 1960 to 1994. We obtained outcome variables from the OECD Health Data 2000 (infant mortality rates and low birth weight rates) and from the United Nations Common Database (UNCDB) (under 5 mortality rates). Explanatory variables were obtained from the updated Deininger and Squire Dataset (1996), the World Bank World Development Indicators, and Huber, Ragin and Stephens' "Comparative Welfare State Dataset". We used unbalanced panel data analysis with robust-cluster estimators. Results revealed that infant and under- 5 mortality rates were more closely associated with real GDP per capita than Gini coefficients. Among the political and the welfare state variables, total public medical coverage was the best significant predictor of mortality outcomes. The low birth weight rate was more strongly associated with the Gini coefficient than with the real GDP, and was more sensitive to political predictors such as percentage of vote obtained by leftist parties (labor, social democratic, socialist) than the other outcomes. These results add evidence to the emerging literature on the political determinants of population health. They also suggest that among contemporary western wealthy countries, government by left wing political parties may result in better health indicators than government by right wing political parties.
Learning Objectives: After the presentation, the audiences will be able to
Keywords: Social Inequalities, Child Health
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.