ArticleResearch in health services & regions2022
The association between social development and population health: a cross-sectional study across countries of different economic growth.
Article in Research in health services & regions, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Cancer and dementia incidence are strongly correlated worldwide: evidence from cross-national regression analyses.Future science OA · 2026Article
- Trends and patterns of global health risk factors (2015-2019): a composite index approach across 100 countries stratified by human development index groups.Journal of health, population, and nutrition · 2025Article
- Identifying knowledge gaps in social determinants of health and related challenges in Iran; 2023.Health research policy and systems · 2025Article
- Impacts of cash transfer and "cash plus" programs on self- perceived stress in Africa: Evidence from Ghana, Malawi, and Tanzania.SSM - population health · 2023Article
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Abstract
backgroundSocial Determinants of Health (SDH) are important in explaining why some countries enjoy better health than others. This empirical study highlights controversies in the literature on the relationship between socioeconomic development and health, and investigates how the relationship might vary in countries with different economic growth.
methodsThe sample consists of 172 countries, and recent cross-sectional data was collected from the World Bank's "Data Bank". Population health was proxied with life expectancy, infant mortality and under-five mortality, and sociooeconomic conditions were expressed with GNI/capita, unemployment rate, poverty, Gini index, educational attainment, public spending on health and physician density. Countries were categorized into three groups as low / lower middle-, upper middle- and high-income according to World Bank thresholds. Ordinary least squares regression was used to model the relationships.
resultsThe association between socioeconomic conditions and health differed between countries of different economic development. Poverty, educational attainment, income inequality, and physician density were the strongest contributors to health. Higher economic development had a stronger relationship with health in richer countries, and government commitment to health care in poorer ones.
conclusionBased on evidence from studies such as this one, researchers and policymakers globally could commit to acting together on SDH, and to aligning resources from different sectors to formulate interventions aiming to improve population health.
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