The Effects of Water Access on Government Health Care Spending Worldwide

Abstract

Water access worldwide affects numerous areas of personal health. This paper attempts to analyze the effects that water access has on total government health care expenditure in different countries. By utilizing a cross-sectional analysis on data from over 80 countries, we provide a unique view of how lack of water access may burden health care. This paper grounds its hypothesis in Pareto economic welfare policy, which helps explain the relationship between these variables. In addition to water access, we utilized additional independent variables such as private health care spending and tobacco use and a dummy variable adjusting for differences in developed and non-developed countries. These variables enabled us to gain a holistic view of the effects of water access on health care spending. Our study is founded upon existing economic theory and is thus related to other empirical works. It is unique in the way in which health care spending is explained using distinct variables and data sets.