Economic development and health status in Iran: A panel data analysis

Abstract

Researchers are highly interested in exploring the interconnection of economic condition and health status which are two crucial dimensions of sustainability, including the 3rd and 8th sustainable development goals (SDGs) of the United Nations. To investigate this relationship, this study applies the panel corrected standard errors method to estimate the fixed-effects model using data of provinces in Iran during 2006–2019. Our findings show different relationships between mortality and economic conditions considering cause-specific (disease), age, sex, and rural/urban groups. Most cause-specific mortality shows a countercyclical relationship with economic fluctuations, including 1- total, 2- heart, 3- mental, behavioral, and nervous, 4- cancer, 5- pregnancy, childbirth, and puerperium mortality. Nonetheless, other mortality causes follow procyclical patterns, including respiratory system diseases. By age, employment and mortality follow a countercyclical pattern in youngers but a procyclical relationship in older age groups. By sex, men are more vulnerable than women to economic cycles. By rural/urban, this study reveals that the rural population is more vulnerable than the urban to economic fluctuations. Our research suggests that policymakers consider the health effects of the socioeconomic strategies and trace them to mitigate the destructive effects of the programs on people's health. They should develop strategies to maintain economic stability by controlling inflation and economic growth. These plans have spillover effects on health outcomes, especially for men, working and elderly age groups, and the rural population.

Keywords

• Health outcome
• Mortality
• Unemployment
• Employment
• Business cycle