The role of access to electricity, female education, and public health expenditure on female health outcomes: evidence from SAARC-ASEAN countries

Mohammad Mafizur Rahman,Khosrul Alam

doi:10.1186/s12905-021-01520-0

Abstract

BackgroundThe importance of the status of female health should have research priority due to the unique medical needs of women. Hence this paper attempts to explore the nexus of access to electricity, female education, and public health expenditure with female health outcomes in the SAARC-ASEAN countries.MethodsUsing the data of 2002–2018, and applying the cross-sectional dependence test, Modified Wald test, Wooldridge test, the Panel corrected standard error (PCSE) model, the Feasible generalized least square (FGLS) model, and the pair-wise Granger causality test, the robust outcomes on female health are found.ResultsAccess to electricity, female education rate, public health expenditure, economic growth, and immunization rate, all have a positive effect on female life expectancy at birth, and a negative effect on the female adult mortality rate. The urbanization rate has a significantly positive impact on female life expectancy at birth but an insignificant impact on female adult mortality rate. The one-way causal relationship between the variables are also revealed.ConclusionsAll the results are rational and have important milestone for the health sector. The health status of females should be improved and protected by formulating effective policies on access to electricity, female education, public health expenditure, immunization, economic growth, and urbanization.

Highlights

The importance of the status of female health cannot be overlooked and should be prioritized in order to balance gender equality and fulfil the unique medical needs of women
In 2018, the average female adult mortality rate in these countries was 126.411 per 1,000 female adults, where the highest mortality is experienced by Bhutan (194.721 per 1000 female adults) and the lowest mortality was in Sri Lanka (56.065 per 1000 female adults) [5]
Access to electricity is the percentage of population having access to electricity; female education rate is the school enrolment of females at secondary level as a percentage of gross; immunization rate is taken as measles vaccination taking rate as the percentage of children ages 12–23 months; gross domestic product (GDP) is used to see the reflection of economic growth; urbanization is defined as the urban population referring to people living in urban areas as a percentage of total population; and the public health expenditure is taken as the domestic general health expenditure per capita at current US$ funded by the government

Summary

Introduction

The importance of the status of female health cannot be overlooked and should be prioritized in order to balance gender equality and fulfil the unique medical needs of women. In 2018, the average female adult mortality rate in these countries was 126.411 per 1,000 female adults (ages 15–60 years), where the highest mortality is experienced by Bhutan (194.721 per 1000 female adults) and the lowest mortality was in Sri Lanka (56.065 per 1000 female adults) [5] This is higher than some other regions of the world such as EU and North America where the average female adult mortality of these two regions was 52.251 and 81.935, respectively [5]. The average per capita public health expenditure in this region is US$119.279 [5] All these indicators need more careful attention for ensuring better health outcomes of female. This paper attempts to explore the nexus of access to electricity, female education, and public health expenditure with female health outcomes in the SAARC-ASEAN countries

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion