Vision and Eye Research Institute, School of Medicine, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Centre for Pluralist Economics, Faculty of Business and Law, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Front Public Health. 2021 Jan 20;8:582140. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2020.582140. eCollection 2020.
COVID-19 has affected all countries globally. We explore associations between the change in new COVID-19 registered cases per million population and various macroeconomic and well-being indicators in 38 European countries over a 2-month period (1st April-31st May 2020). A statistically significant ( = 0.002) negative association was estimated between the change in new COVID-19 cases and GDP per capita, after controlling for key health determinants including public expenditure on health, life expectancy, smoking tobacco and sanitation. The country with the highest GDP per capita in Europe (i.e., Luxemburg) was found to experience the lowest change in new COVID-19 cases within the time period whilst the opposite was found for countries with lower GDP per capita (i.e., Ukraine, Bulgaria, and Romania). The outcomes of this study indicate that, in the first wave of the pandemic in Europe, a country's GDP per capita might be associated with a lower rate of new COVID-19 cases. The study concludes by suggesting that in European regions a country's economic performance should be a critical health priority for policy makers.
新冠疫情已在全球各国蔓延。我们研究了在 2020 年 4 月 1 日至 5 月 31 日的两个月期间，38 个欧洲国家每百万人口新登记新冠病例变化与各种宏观经济和福祉指标之间的关联。在控制了包括公共卫生支出、预期寿命、吸烟和卫生条件在内的主要健康决定因素后，我们发现新新冠病例变化与人均 GDP 之间存在统计学显著的（=0.002）负相关关系。在欧洲人均 GDP 最高的国家（即卢森堡），在此期间新新冠病例的变化最小，而人均 GDP 较低的国家（即乌克兰、保加利亚和罗马尼亚）则相反。本研究结果表明，在欧洲大流行的第一波疫情中，一个国家的人均 GDP 可能与其新新冠病例的较低增长率相关。研究最后提出，在欧洲地区，一国的经济表现应成为决策者的一项重要健康优先事项。
