Impact of Public Health Indicators on Economic Growth in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

The study examines the impact of public health indicators on economic growth rates in the KSA, during the period 2000-2023 using an Autoregressive Distributed Lag Model (ARDL) has been described to express the relationship between economic growth- measured by GDP per Capita as the dependent variable, and public health indicators including Current Health Expenditure, Number of Health Insurance Documents, Number of Doctors, Number of Beds, Number of Users of Safely Managed Sanitation Services, Number of Clean Fuel Users as independent variables. The study’s Results demonstrate a positive long-term relationship between economic growth and the following variables: Current Health Expenditure, Number of Health Insurance Documents, and the Number of Doctors. Furthermore, a positive short-term relationship was observed between economic growth and the Number of Health Insurance Documents, the Number of Doctors, the Number of Users of Safely Managed Sanitation Services. However, Contrary to expectations, the study found an inverse relationship between economic growth and the Number of Beds in both the long and short term. Finally, the study concluded that economic growth is not affected by Current Health Expenditure in the short term, the Number of Users of Safely Managed Sanitation Services in the long term, and the Number of Clean Fuel Users in either term. Based on these results, the study recommends enhancing Current Health Expenditure to improve quality of life and productivity rates, adopting policies and procedures to ensure the equitable distribution of medical human resources, and the need for further research into public health indicators and their association with economic growth rates in Saudi Arabia.