Treatable mortality and health care related factors across European countries

• Published in: Frontiers in public health Vol. 12; p. 1301825
• Main Author: Tavares, Aida Isabel
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland Frontiers Media S.A 2024
• Subjects: Europe; Europe - epidemiology; Female; Health Expenditures; Health Personnel; health resources; Humans; Length of Stay; Linear Models; Male; quantile regression; treatable mortality; Europe; quantile regression; health resources; health expenditures; Europe; treatable mortality
• ISSN: 2296-2565; 2296-2565
• DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1301825

Despite the improvements in European health systems, a large number of premature deaths are attributable to treatable mortality. Men make up the majority of these deaths, with a significant gap existing between women and men's treatable mortality rate in the EU.
This study aims to identify the healthcare-related factors, including health expenditures, human and physical resources, and hospital services use associated with treatable mortality in women and men across European countries during the period 2011-2019.
We use Eurostat data for 28 EU countries in the period 2011-2019. We estimate a panel data linear regression with country fixed effects and quantile linear regression for men and women.
The results found (i) differences in drivers for male and female treatable mortality, but common drivers hold the same direction for both sexes; (ii) favorable drivers are GDP
, health expenditures, number of physicians
, and (only for men) the average length of a hospital stay, (iii) unfavorable drivers are nurses and beds
, although nurses are not significant for explaining female mortality.
Policy recommendations may arise that involve an improvement in hospital bed management and the design of more specific policies aimed at healthcare professionals.