Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for the betterment of health status, while also considering health expenditure, energy, and environmental issues. This paper examines the nexus between health status and health expenditure (both public and private), energy consumption and environmental pollution in the SAARC-BIMSTEC region.
Methodology: We utilized the panel autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model, heterogeneous panel causality test, cross sectional dependence test, cointegration test and Pesaran cross sectional dependent (CADF) unit root test for obtaining estimated results from data over 16 years (2002-2017).
Results: Our results authorize the cointegration among the variables used, where energy consumption, public and private health expenditure and economic growth have positive and statistically significant effects and environmental pollution has both negative and significant effects on the health status of these regions in the long-term, but no panel wise significant impact is found in the short-term. Two-way causal relationships between health status and environmental pollution, public and private health expenditure, economic growth and sanitation facilities, and a one-way causality running from energy consumption to health status are presented.
Conclusions: The improved health status in the SAARC-BIMSTEC region needs to be protected by articulating the effective policies on both public and private health expenditures, environmental pollution, energy consumption, and economic growth. The attained results are theoretically and empirically consistent, and have important policy implications in the health sector.