Track: Healthcare Operations and Services

Abstract

The American healthcare system has become a subject of an intensive debate by many global health care professionals who argue, justifiably to some extents that the United States spends more than any other similar countries on health care, yet the health outcomes have been hovering at the bottom for industrialized nations (Bradley-Springer, 2012).

Researchers in the health care fields have been arguing that investment in the health care system alone cannot improve health outcomes (Butler, Bowen and Cabello, 2017). Financial pressure forces decision makers to look for a short term solution leading toward higher usage of drugs than in other countries (Kwon,Kim and Martin, 2017).

In order to explain seemingly contradicting health outcomes, some of researchers have developed a different hypothesis to explain health outcomes. They argue that “health” can be explained better with a composite measure of medical as well as social determinants of health. The implication is that a nation’s health policy should address investment in the combined health “basket” (medical plus social agents) to achieve the goals.

This study uses 39 countries as unit of analysis; 20 advanced industrial countries and 19 others emerging countries and underdeveloped nations. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the roles that economic agents (spending on health care sector per capita basis) and social determinants such insurance coverage (% covered by some types of health insurance), income inequality measured by Gini Index, drug overdosed death per 100,000, gun ownership per 100 households and gun related homicide per 100,000.

Previous studies on social determinants in health speculate that social determinants play more significant roles than medical spending in determining the health outcomes. But their studies limit their scope of study to the United States only (Bradley-Springer, 2012

) or advanced industrialized countries (Kwon, Kim and Martin, 2017). This study proposes to investigate statistically the relationship between social determinants and health outcomes for 2 different groups of country. Multivariate statistical analysis will be used to extract information.

Two research outcomes are to be expected from this study. If health outcomes are influenced more by social determinants than medical investment, national policy on health care improvement needs to be re-evaluated to get a better return from spending on health care improvement

Keywords: Social determinants of health, medical investment

The American healthcare system has become a subject of an intensive debate by many global health care professionals who argue, justifiably to some extents that the United States spends more than any other similar countries on health care, yet the health outcomes have been hovering at the bottom for industrialized nations (Bradley-Springer, 2012).

Researchers in the health care fields have been arguing that investment in the health care system alone cannot improve health outcomes (Butler, Bowen and Cabello, 2017). Financial pressure forces decision makers to look for a short term solution leading toward higher usage of drugs than in other countries (Kwon,Kim and Martin, 2017).

In order to explain seemingly contradicting health outcomes, some of researchers have developed a different hypothesis to explain health outcomes. They argue that “health” can be explained better with a composite measure of medical as well as social determinants of health. The implication is that a nation’s health policy should address investment in the combined health “basket” (medical plus social agents) to achieve the goals.

This study uses 39 countries as unit of analysis; 20 advanced industrial countries and 19 others emerging countries and underdeveloped nations. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the roles that economic agents (spending on health care sector per capita basis) and social determinants such insurance coverage (% covered by some types of health insurance), income inequality measured by Gini Index, drug overdosed death per 100,000, gun ownership per 100 households and gun related homicide per 100,000.

Previous studies on social determinants in health speculate that social determinants play more significant roles than medical spending in determining the health outcomes. But their studies limit their scope of study to the United States only (Bradley-Springer, 2012

) or advanced industrialized countries (Kwon, Kim and Martin, 2017). This study proposes to investigate statistically the relationship between social determinants and health outcomes for 2 different groups of country. Multivariate statistical analysis will be used to extract information.

Two research outcomes are to be expected from this study. If health outcomes are influenced more by social determinants than medical investment, national policy on health care improvement needs to be re-evaluated to get a better return from spending on health care improvement

Keywords: Social determinants of health, medical investment

Bradley-Springer, Lucy (2012). The social determinants of health. Journal of the

Association of Nurses in Aids Care. May-June, 23(3): 181-183.

Butler, SM, Mathew, DB and Cabello, M (2017). Re-balancing medical and social spending to

promote health: Increasing state flexibility to improve health through housing. Brookings,

February 15. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2017/02/15.