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Jump to Chapter 3 Sections:
>> Health, development and aid >> Broad progress, startling changes, persistent quandaries >> Health indicators: advances and obstacles >> Health systems and services >> To review the bidding >> Implications of trends for future directions >> Implications for the philosophy and pursuit of "foreign assistance" >> Notes >> Background paper >> References
Over the past few decades the world has seen significant changes in health indicators and services.
This section and several that follow examine these changes and project developments over the next 15-20 years, drawing on the socioeconomic and health factors that have driven recent changes.
Health outcomes are closely related to political and civil freedoms. Open societies generally have lower mortality. For example, countries considered not free are more than three times as likely as free countries to have infant mortality rates about 50 per 1,000 live births.2 Similarly, a recent World Bank study found that an increase in any of six indicators of good governance is associated with at least a halving of a country’s infant mortality rate.
Better health is also related to higher incomes and economic growth, with the effects running in both directions. Differences in income growth over the past 30 years explain some 40 percent of differences in mortality improvements between countries. 4 Although the direct effects of health on economic growth are difficult to distinguish at the macroeconomic level,5 decent health is essential for worker productivity and individual economic welfare. It is safe to assume that investments in
health contribute to growth in countries with good governance, institutions, and economic policies.
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