Health¶
Purpose and Perspective¶
The Health sector derives key indicators that are directly relevant to SDG targets and that feedback to other sectors and processes in the model. These include access to basic health care, prevalence of undernourishment, and proportion of population exposed to PM2.5 levels exceeding World Health Organization guidelines.
Income is a prime consideration in access to health care. In this sector we use the distribution of average after tax income to realistically capture the effects of income inequality and poverty on access to health care. Also, we use the distribution of average income with the food poverty line to assess the prevalence of undernourishment.
Model Structure and Major Assumptions¶
Per capita public health expenditure affects access to basic healthcare [1]
Disposable income affects access to basic healthcare [2]
Education level affects access to basic healthcare [3]
Road infrastructure density affects access to basic healthcare [4]
Disposable income affects under nourishment [5]
Per capita food production affects under nourishment [6]
Exogenous Input Variables¶
None
Initialization Variables¶
Initial health care implemented expenditure - Units: Rlcu
Initial per capita health care implemented expenditure – Units: Rlcu/person
Initial average access to basic health care - Units: Dmnl
Initial per capita cereal production – Units: Ton/(year*person)
Initial real food poverty line – Units: Rlcu (year*person)
Initial total PM2.5 emissions – Units: Kt/year
Initial PM2.5 mean annual exposure – Units: g/CM/year
Modeling Details¶
Distribution of income and poverty levels have profound influence on health, including access to basic health care and undernourishment. The effect of income distribution on access to health care is modeled using a functional form that causes access to basic health care to increase at a decreasing rate, asymptotically approaching 1 as real average income by percentile approaches a saturation income. The effects of the other factors further accelerate such progress towards 100% access to basic health care.
Footnotes and References¶
[1] Peters, D.H., Kandola, K., Elmdort, A.E. & Chellaraj, G. (1999). Health expenditures, services, and outcomes in Africa: Basic data and cross-national comparisons, 1990-1996.
[2] Carrin, G., Mathauer, I., Xu, K., & Evans, D.B. (2008). Universal coverage of health services: tailoring its implementation. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 86, 11: 817-908.
[3] Feinstein, L., Sabates, R., Anderson, T.M., Sorhaindo, A., & Hammond, C. (2006). What are the effects of education on health? Measuring the Effects of Education on Health and Civic Engagement. Proceedings of the Copenhagen Symposium. OECD
[4] Calderón, C., & Servén, L. (2004). The Effects of Infrastructure Development on Growth and Income Distribution. Working Paper Series, 3400. Washington, DC: World Bank.
[5] Ravallion, M. (1990). Income effects on undernutrition. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 38, 3: 489-515.
[6] Girard, A.W., Self, J.L., McAuliffe, C. & Olude, O. (2012). The Effects of Household Food Production Strategies on the Health and Nutrition Outcomes of Women and Young Children: A Systematic Review. Paediatric and Perinatal epidemiology, S1: 205-222.
