Keywords
Government Health Expenditure
Environmental Quality
Medical Technology
ARDL.
Article Number
011Abstract
Nigeria remains among the countries with the highest maternal mortality ratios globally, recording nearly 512 deaths per 100,000 live births in spite of sustained policy interventions and considerable international assistance. Against this background, this study examines the effects of government health expenditure, environmental quality, and medical technology on maternal mortality in Nigeria over the period 1985–2024. The study relies on annual time-series data obtained from the World Bank’s World Development Indicators and applies the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing framework to estimate both short-run dynamics and long-run relationships among the variables. The empirical findings indicate that, in the short run, government health expenditure has a negative and statistically significant effect on maternal mortality, indicating that increases in public health spending contribute to a reduction in maternal deaths in the short run. Environmental quality also shows a significant negative effect in its lagged form, suggesting that improvements in environmental conditions increase maternal health outcomes, although with a delayed impact. However, the long-run estimates reveal that neither government health expenditure nor environmental quality has a statistically significant influence on maternal mortality. Furthermore, the estimated error correction term is negative and statistically significant, showing the existence of a stable long-run equilibrium relationship among the variables. These findings imply that while short-term interventions in health spending and environmental management can yield immediate improvements in maternal health outcomes, long-term progress requires addressing deeper systemic constraints within the health and environmental sectors. The study highlights the importance of targeted short-run policy measures together with comprehensive structural reforms. It recommends strengthening budget implementation processes, integrating environmental health monitoring into maternal healthcare programmes, and enhancing the distribution and capacity of the health workforce to ensure sustained reductions in maternal mortality in NigeriaReferences
Aderinto, E. (2023). Energy consumption, environmental quality and health Nexus in West African Countries: Implications for Sustainable Development. Research Square 1(1), 1-11
Augustine, E. (2024). Public Health Expenditure and Sustainable Health Outcomes in 45 Sub-Saharan African Countries: Does Government Effectiveness Matter? Economies 12: 129.
Ayeyi, M., et al. (2020). Health workers’ perception and adoption of medical technologies in improving patient outcomes in Nigeria.
Ayeyi, V. G., Edeh, F. O., Ologunde, O. A., & Adekeye, D. S. (2020). The effectiveness of medical technology in measuring service quality in Nigerian healthcare sector. International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology, 5(10), 498–505.
Beyene, S. D., & Kotosz B. (2021). Empirical Evidence for the Impact of Environmental Quality on Life Expectancy in African Countries. J HealthPollut.11(29):210312.
Bogale, T. N., & Derseh, L. (2024). Electronic health records and mortality: An updated synthesis. Frontiers in Digital Health, 6.
Cleopatra, O. I. & Tolulope, T. O. (2020). Environmental quality, economic growth, and health expenditure: empirical evidence from a panel of African Countries. African Journal of Economic Review, 8(2), 119-141.
Danladi, A. (2021). Capital health investments and life expectancy in Nigeria.
Dickey, D. A., & Fuller, W. A. (1981). Likelihood Ratio Statistics for Autoregressive Time Series with a Unit Root. Econometrica, 49(4), 1057–1072.
Dinga, G. D., Mah, G., & Mosikari, T. (2024). Government health expenditure and maternal mortality: The moderating role of external debt. Healthcare, 12(20), 2030.
Ethem, E. & Merve, Ç. K. (2022). Economic Growth and Health Expenditure Analysis for Turkey: Evidence from Time Series. Journal of the Knowledge Economy, 1(3):1786–1800
Grossman, M. (1972). On the concept of health capital and the demand for health. Journal of Political economy, 80(2), 223-255.
Hanifiah, M. F., Rahman, A. A., & Suryani, R. (2023). Analysis of the effect of health expenditure on economic growth in Indonesia (1990-2021). Journal of Economics, Finance and Management Studies, 6(1), 483-488.
Jacques, B. & Noël, T. (2024). Effect of public health expenditure on maternal mortality ratio in the West African Economic and Monetary Union. Open Access, 1-11.
Karaaslan, A., & Çamkaya, S. (2022). The relationship between CO2 emissions, economic growth, health expenditure, and renewable and non-renewable energy consumption: Empirical evidence from Turkey. Renewable Energy, 190, 457–466.
Khelfaoui, I., Xie, Y., Hafeez, M., Ahmed, D., Degha, H. E., & Meskher, H. (2022). Information Communication Technology and Infant Mortality in Low‐Income Countries: Empirical study using panel data models. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(12), 7338
Lawal, A. O., Ogunleye, S. T., & Salami, K. T. (2022). Government health expenditure, population, and economic growth in Nigeria. The Nigerian Journal of Energy & Environmental Economics, 13(1), 84-96.
Momoh, O. A. & okwu, A. T. (2022). Income and health outcomes in the anglophone west african countries: a dynamic heterogeneous approach, Journal of Economics and Allied Research, 7(1), 159-177.
Oladele, A. S., Oyewole, A. T., & Bello, M. O. (2023). Government health expenditure, health aid, and under-five mortality in Nigeria. Scope, 13(2), 678-688.
Omirin, O. D., & Idris, M. (2023). Impact of government health expenditure on child mortality in Nigeria. International Journal of Economics and Development Policy, 6(1), 93-114.
Owusu, P. A., Sarkodie, S. A., & Pedersen, P. A. (2021). Relationship between mortality and health care expenditure: Sustainable assessment of health care system. Plos one, 16(2), e0247413.
Selin, M., Demir, A., & Koc, E. (2023). Environmental quality and health expenditures efficiency in Türkiye: The role of natural resources. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 30, 15170–15185.
Sibanda, K.; Qoko, A.; Gonese, D. ( 2024) Health Expenditure, Institutional Quality, and Under-Five Mortality in Sub-Saharan African Countries. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health, 21, 333.
Sisay, D. B., & Balázs, K. (2021). Empirical evidence for the impact of environmental quality on life expectancy in African countries. Journal Of Health & Pollution,11(29), 1-16
Taofeeq, A., et al. (2022). Standard medical equipment, trained personnel, and hospital mortality reduction in Nigeria.
United Nations (UN). (2023). Sustainable Development Goals Report 2023: Goal 3 – Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. New York, NY: United Nations.
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). (2019). Global environment outlook and environmental health risks. Nairobi, Kenya: UNEP.
World Bank. (2023). World Development Indicators. Washington, DC: World Bank.
World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), World Bank Group, & United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. (2023). Maternal mortality estimates and trends. Geneva, Switzerland: WHO.
World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), World Bank Group, & United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. (2025). Global and regional maternal mortality trends: 2000–2025. Geneva, Switzerland: WHO.
World Health Organization (WHO). (2021). Environment, climate change and health. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization.
World Health Organization (WHO). (2023). Trends in maternal mortality: 2000 to 2023. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Copyright (c) 2026 Zhegum Joseph Maras, Mohammed Inuwa Dauda, Idowu Daniel Onisanwa (Author)