Wrocław University of Economics and Business, Wrocław, Poland.
Medical University of Gdańsk, Gdańsk, Poland.
BMC Public Health. 2022 Jul 23;22(1):1405. doi: 10.1186/s12889-022-13740-6.
The economic slowdown affects the population's health. Based on a social gradient concept, we usually assume that this detrimental impact results from a lower social status, joblessness, or other related factors. Although many researchers dealt with the relationship between economy and health, the findings are still inconsistent, primarily related to unemployment. This study reinvestigates a relationship between the economy's condition and health by decomposing it into macroeconomic indicators.
We use data for 21 European countries to estimate the panel models, covering the years 1995-2019. Dependent variables describe population health (objective measures - life expectancy for a newborn and 65 years old, healthy life expectancy, separately for male and female). The explanatory variables primarily represent GDP and other variables describing the public finance and health sectors.
(1) the level of economic activity affects the population's health - GDP stimulates the life expectancies positively; this finding is strongly statistically significant; (2) the unemployment rate also positively affects health; hence, increasing the unemployment rate is linked to better health - this effect is relatively short-term.
Social benefits or budgetary imbalance may play a protective role during an economic downturn.
经济放缓会影响民众健康。基于社会梯度理论，我们通常认为这种不利影响源自社会地位较低、失业或其他相关因素。尽管许多研究人员都探讨过经济与健康之间的关系，但结果仍不一致，主要与失业有关。本研究通过分解宏观经济指标，重新考察经济状况与健康之间的关系。
我们使用了 1995-2019 年期间 21 个欧洲国家的数据来估计面板模型。因变量描述了人口健康状况（客观指标——新生儿和 65 岁人群的预期寿命、男女两性的健康预期寿命）。解释变量主要代表 GDP 以及描述公共财政和卫生部门的其他变量。
（1）经济活动水平影响人口健康——GDP 对预期寿命有积极影响；这一发现具有很强的统计学意义；（2）失业率也对健康有积极影响——因此，失业率上升与健康状况改善有关——这种影响是短期的。
在经济下滑期间，社会福利或预算失衡可能会发挥保护作用。
