Sustainable thresholds, health outcomes, health expenditures and education nexus in selected African countries: quadratic and moderation modelling

BACKGROUND: This study aligns with Sustainable Development Goal 3 which borders on “good health and well-being for people by ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all at all ages”. It contributes to the health literature by evaluating the roles of health expenditures and educational quality on three health outcomes (infant mortality, maternal mortality and life expectancy at birth). METHODS: The study uses the panel spatial correlation consistent (PSCC) approach on balanced panel data on 25 selected sub-Saharan African countries from 2000 to 2020 to interrogate the nexus. RESULTS: The following findings are documented. First, health expenditures reveal significant asymmetric quadratic effects on health outcomes. Second, the interactions between health expenditures and educational quality reduce infant and maternal mortalities while enhancing life expectancy. Third, the threshold points from the interaction effects indicate that enhancing educational quality beyond some critical thresholds of 1.51 and 1.49 can induce a drop in maternal and child mortalities while a point beyond 1.84 exerts an improvement in life expectancy. CONCLUSIONS: Hence, policy makers should ensure that both health expenditures and educational quality exceed the established thresholds for sustainable health outcomes.