In Asia, Does Higher Social Assistance Spending Mean Better Health?
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A study in 22 low- and middle-income countries in Asia reveals a strong positive relationship between social protection spending and health outcomes.
Using the latest data on social protection in Asia, this study hopes to explore the potential association of social protection spending and health outcomes in low- and middle-income Asian economies.
For this study, the authors used three health outcomes which focus on indicators related to maternal and child health. It also used multiple linear regressions to test different models exploring the potential association of social protection spending of countries and health outcomes. In this paper, four models were used to examine the components of social protection spending that are mostly associated to better health outcomes.
At a macro level, this study intends to shed light on the potential importance of both health and nonhealth-related social protection programs in improving health outcomes. This is with the recognition of the need for further studies in this area as data becomes available in the years to come.