Impact of the economic crisis on health indicators: A Panel Data Analysis in Eastern Mediterranean Countries

One of the affecting factors on health outcomes in any country is macro-economic environment, Studying the impact of unemployment on health outcomes is important because unemployment is an important social determinant of health and is strongly linked to a number of health outcomes. We aimed to examine the impact of the economic crisis on health indicators in the Eastern Mediterranean Countries. In this study, life expectancy and infant mortality rate were considered as indicators of health status and unemployment rate was a proxy of economic crisis. We estimated the model using the panel data of Eastern Mediterranean Countries between 2005 and 2014. Data was taken as World Bank database and the calculations were performed by using the statistical software STAT 12. The results showed that the unemployment rate and health expenditure per capita had a strong relationship with health outcomes. So, increase of 1% unemployment rate lead to decreasing of 0.17 life expectancy and increase of 1% of the health expenditure per capita decrease of 4.54 in infant mortality rate. The findings imply that during the economic crisis there is a decrease in life expectancy for Eastern Mediterranean Countries, the unemployment rate and health expenditure per capita are important predictors for health status.