Estimating a health production function for Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA

The paper estimates a health production function for Sub-Saharan Africa based on the Grossman (1972) theoretical model that treats social, economic, and environmental factors as inputs of the production system. In estimating this function, socioeconomic and environmental factors such as income per capita, illiteracy rate, food availability, ratio of health expenditure to GDP, urbanization rate, and carbon dioxide emission per worker are specified as determinants of health status, proxied by life expectancy at birth. The parameters of the function are estimated by a method of one-way and two-way panel data analyses. The results obtained from two-way random effect model suggest that an increase in income per capita, a decrease in illiteracy rate, an increase in food availability are well associated with improvement in life expectancy at birth. Overall results suggest that a health policy, which may focus on the provision of health, services, family planning programs, and emergency aids to the exclusion of other socioeconomic aspects may do little in efforts directed toward improving the current health status of the region