A comparative study of factors influencing the health status of selected African developing countries

Abstract

This study is to develop models which put into the right perspective various a-priori assumption about factors influencing the health status of African Developing nations. Various empirical studies have shown that the health status of nations is dependent on a variety of factors many of which define the general socio-economic conditions that are prevalent in developed economies. The a-priori assumptions elaborated in this research are based on the justification that conditions in less developed countries (LDCs) do not necessarily make the superimposition of the results of previous work on such nations realistic. Indeed, there are very few formal studies of the precise relationships \vhich exist between health status, health services and the standard of living. Therefore a major purpose of this study is to identify and analyse a collectively exhaustive set of relevant factors and to investigate their relationships. The theoretical model developed is based on the 'Systems Approach' and the methodology used is based on the application of certain statistical packages in social systems. Finally, mathematical models are produced whose application would highlight certain relevant indicators such that the predicted values of these indicators would in turn help policy-makers understand the wide ramifications. The procedures used to analyse the factors mainly involve comparative analysis, systems analysis and aggregate data analysis. The data utilised are from secondary sources, accumulated at the World Health Organisation (WHO), International Labour Office (ILO) and a few other resourceful libraries.