The Relationship between Health Indicators and Development Ranks of Provinces in Turkey

Year 2016, Issue: 2, 103 - 110, 01.12.2016

Serap Taşkaya Bayram Şahin Mustafa Demirkıran Mehmet Yorulmaz Pınar Yalçın Balçık

Abstract

It is known that health has a significant positive effect on the rate of economic development in a country. However current research rarely permits the understanding of what the most important indicators are in the level of development. The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between health indicators and development levels of provinces. The data on the development level of the provinces was obtained from “Socio-Economic Development Ranking of Provinces and Regions,” published in 2013 by the Ministry of Development of the Republic of Turkey. The number of health workers per ten thousand people, the number of hospitals, hospital beds, and the infant mortality rate by provinces was obtained from the web site of the Turkey Statistical Institute (TSI). At the end of the multiple regression analyses, it was found that the development ranks of provinces was effected by the number of pharmacists per ten thousand people, and the number of hospitals. According to these findings, the human resources for health, especially the number of pharmacists per ten thousand and the number of hospitals, could be taken into account in research on development rankings, and these indicators could be used as substitution variables for the development levels.

Keywords

Development ranks of provinces, Human resources for health, Number of hospitals, Hospital beds, Infant mortality rate