POVERTY, HEALTH INEQUALITY AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN NIGERIA

This study investigates the dynamic relationship between poverty, health inequality, and economic growth in Nigeria from 1990 to 2024, employing the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model to capture both short- and long-run effects. The study draws on annual data from the World Bank, World Health Organization, and National Bureau of Statistics to examine the influence of poverty, life expectancy, infant mortality, out-of-pocket health expenditure, and human capital development on real GDP growth. Findings reveal a stable long-run relationship among the variables. Poverty exerts a negative but statistically weak impact on economic growth, while life expectancy shows a strong and significant positive effect, indicating that improved health outcomes enhance productivity and long-term growth. Infant mortality and out-of-pocket health expenditures are negative but insignificant, suggesting inefficiencies in healthcare financing. Human capital development demonstrates a significant but counter-intuitive negative relationship with growth, implying that low-quality education and institutional weaknesses hinder the translation of human-capital investments into productivity gains. The study concludes that sustainable economic growth in Nigeria requires targeted health and education reforms, improved institutional quality, and inclusive policy interventions to break the cycle of poverty and health inequality.