Economic and demographic influences on health expenditures: robust approaches for income and aging effects

Abstract

BackgroundHealth expenditure is influenced by complex interactions between economic, demographic, social factors, with significant variations across countries. This study aims to investigate the determinants of health expenditures employing robust regression methods offering a more flexible and reliable approach to dealing with outliers and high data variation.MethodsThis study employs robust regression methods, Weighted Least Squares (WLS) and MM-estimator regression, to examine the determinants of health expenditures. The analyses were conducted using data from 179 countries for the year 2021 with the R Studio.ResultsThe findings indicate that income and ageing are significant determinants of health expenditures, and sixteen outliers were identified. In contrast, education level, public health expenditure, disease patterns showed no significant effect.ConclusionThis study fills gap in the literature by using robust regression methods to account for outliers and provides new insights into the role of economic and demographic factors in health expenditures.