HEALTH EXPENDITURE AND INFANT MORTALITY RATE IN SUB SAHARAN AFRICAN COUNTRIES: A PANEL ANALYSIS

This study examined the effect of health expenditure on the infant mortality rate in Sub-Saharan African countries. In order to explore the short-run and long-run effects of various health expenditure components on infant mortality, panel data covering the period from 1990 to 2023 were employed. The data were sourced from the World Development Indicators (WDI) of the World Bank. The study adopted the Panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag (PanelARDL) model, and estimation was conducted using Stata software. Preliminary unit root tests were conducted to determine the stationarity properties of the variables and revealed that some variables were stationary at level, while others were integrated of order one Il) at the 5% level of significance. In addition, tests for cross-sectional dependence were carried out to account for the interlinkages among countries in the panel. The ARDL bounds test confirmed the existence of a long-run equilibrium relationship between the health expenditure variables and infant mortality rate. The results revealed that recurrent, capital, public, and private health expenditures had positive but statistically insignificant effects on the infant mortality rate in both the short run and the long run. However, basic sanitation had a positive and statistically significant effect on the infant mortality rate across both timeframes. Urban population was found to have a negative and marginally significant impact in the short run. The error correction term was negative and statistically significant, indicating a strong speed of adjustment towards the long-run equilibrium. Thus, the study concludes that although health spending has potential, its impact on the infant mortality rate in Sub-Saharan Africa is limited by inefficiencies and structural challenges. The study therefore recommends that governments in the region should improve the efficiency of health financing, increase investment in sanitation infrastructure, and address urban health system challenges to achieve lower infant death rates and sustainable improvements in population health.