Objective: From a financial viewpoint, it is important that international medical care and cooperation in recipient countries by NGOs or governments of donor countries, and health promotion carried out by recipient countries' governments, are carried out efficiently. In this paper, we performed analysis of factors that determine life expectancy and infant mortality rates in recipient countries, in consideration of the socioeconomic environment.
Methods: We used data from World Development Indicators 2002 and 2003, published by the World Bank, and Human Development Indicators 2002, published by the United Nations Development Programme. We analyzed 68 countries classified as middle and low income countries by the World Bank, because complete data for these countries were available. We used life expectancy and infant mortality rates as health indicators and did multiple regression analysis; with these indicators as dependent variables, and with socioeconomic environmental data as independent variables. Furthermore, we undertook multiple regression analysis after carrying out group divisions of the countries according to the numbers of refugees, birthrates, and expenditures on armaments.
Results: We ascertained the following points. 1) For improving health of people in recipient countries, it is important to secure safe drinking water, improve literacy, and increase income and the possibility of access to basic medicines. 2) For countries where there are a lot of refugees, it is important to increase the measles vaccine inoculation rate. 3) In countries where there are few refugees, life expectancy will be prolonged by as much as three years if the measles vaccine inoculation rate increases by just 10%. 4) In countries with a high armaments expenditure rate in proportion to GNI, it is important to secure access to sanitary toilet facilities. 5) Life expectancy in countries tends to shorten if life expectancy in their neighboring countries is short. 6) The rate of public health expenditures in proportion to GDP has no affect on health. 7) If the literacy rate rises 10%, life expectancy will be prolonged by about 1.2 years and the infant mortality rate will decrease about 6%.
Conclusion: Though improvement of the socioeconomic environment is more effective for improving life expectancy and infant mortality rates in recipient countries than medical conditions, the effectiveness differs according to the number of refugees, the birthrate and expenditures on armaments.