Dataset of the impact of food insecurity on health outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa.

OBJECTIVES: The 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have goals and targets, including food insecurity and health outcomes. Hence, information about socioeconomic variables that determine the health outcomes of people is essential for health-related research, planning, and policy development. Therefore, this data paper aims to present (describe) the dataset of eight socioeconomic variables for 31 sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries from 2001 to 2018. DATA DESCRIPTIONS: The dataset was official information obtained via open online sources from the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the World Bank (WB), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). It included 558 observations and eight variables, such as life expectancy (LEXP), infant mortality (INFMOR), the prevalence of undernourishment (PRUND), average dietary energy supply (AVRDES), Gross domestic product per capita (GDPPC), general government health expenditure (GOVEXP), urbanisation (URBAN), and mean years of schooling (MNSCHOOL). Moreover, all the data estimation is conducted by Statistical Software (STATA) version 15. This paper achieved its intended objective with a detailed and understandable description.

In-depth analysis of the effect of decomposed growth on the environment: A global perspective.

The traditional Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) theory, which establishes a relationship between economic growth and a select number of pollutants, does not fully capture the broad and nuanced impacts on environmental qualityThis research examines the implications of decomposed economic growth by considering the separate contributions of scale, composition, and technique effects on environmental health and ecosystem vitality. The research spans 121 countries from 2001-2019, using robust statistical methods, including Driscoll-Kraay standard error, fully modified ordinary least squares, and panel quantile estimation techniques. The study reveals complex relationships that depend on countries' income levels. A predominantly positive and non-linear relationship between the scale effect and environmental health is observed for the full sample of countries and for low-income countries. The scale effect also shows a non-linear and predominantly positive relationship with ecosystem vitality in lower-middle-income, upper-middle-income, and high-income countries. The association between the composition effect and environmental health is inverted U-shaped in lower-middle-income countries, while it is mostly negative and non-linear in low-income and high-income countries. For ecosystem vitality, the composition effect shows a negative, non-linear relationship in all sampled countries, but a positive, non-linear relationship in higher-income countries. The relationship between the technology effect and environmental health is largely positive and non-linear in all sampled countries, lower-middle-income countries, upper-middle-income countries, and higher-income countries. However, the relationship is negative in lower-middle-income countries. These results have important policy implications. Governments are encouraged to adopt renewable, sustainable, and low-carbon technologies to address the scale effect. In addition, the formulation and enforcement of stringent environmental regulations for polluting industries is crucial, given the significant impact of the composition effect.

The impact of food insecurity on health outcomes: empirical evidence from sub-Saharan African countries.

BACKGROUND: Food insecurity adversely affects human health, which means food security and nutrition are crucial to improving people's health outcomes. Both food insecurity and health outcomes are the policy and agenda of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, there is a lack of macro-level empirical studies (Macro-level study means studies at the broadest level using variables that represent a given country or the whole population of a country or economy as a whole. For example, if the urban population (% of the total population) of XYZ country is 30%, it is used as a proxy variable to represent represent country's urbanization level. Empirical study implies studies that employ the econometrics method, which is the application of math and statistics.) concerning the relationship between food insecurity and health outcomes in sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries though the region is highly affected by food insecurity and its related health problems. Therefore, this study aims to examine the impact of food insecurity on life expectancy and infant mortality in SSA countries. METHODS: The study was conducted for the whole population of 31 sampled SSA countries selected based on data availability. The study uses secondary data collected online from the databases of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), and the World Bank (WB). The study uses yearly balanced data from 2001 to 2018. This study employs a multicountry panel data analysis and several estimation techniques; it employs Driscoll-Kraay standard errors (DKSE), a generalized method of momentum (GMM), fixed effects (FE), and the Granger causality test. RESULTS: A 1% increment in people's prevalence for undernourishment reduces their life expectancy by 0.00348 percentage points (PPs). However, life expectancy rises by 0.00317 PPs with every 1% increase in average dietary energy supply. A 1% rise in the prevalence of undernourishment increases infant mortality by 0.0119 PPs. However, a 1% increment in average dietary energy supply reduces infant mortality by 0.0139 PPs. CONCLUSIONS: Food insecurity harms the health status of SSA countries, but food security impacts in the reverse direction. This implies that to meet SDG 3.2, SSA should ensure food security.

Investigating the energy-environmental Kuznets curve under panel quantile regression: a global perspective.

Energy is regarded as an engine of economic growth and an important ingredient of human survival and development, but it can lead to deterioration of environmental quality. The study investigates the energy environmental Kuznets curve (EEKC) during the 1990-2017 period for 144 countries using models for total energy, renewable energy, and non-renewable energy consumptions. We employ panel mean and quantile regressions, accounting for individual and distributional heterogeneities. It is found that the EEKC sustains among the higher middle-income countries while it cannot be verified at some lower-income quantiles due to the heterogeneous nature of the different groups of countries. The relationship between economic growth, total energy, and non-renewable energy consumption is positive and non-linear. The quantile estimations revealed mixed (positive and non-linear, inverted U-shape, U-shape, and N-shape) EEKC. The maximum and minimum turning values of GDP per capita for total energy consumption (is 43,201.58 and 89,630.49), for renewable energy consumption (53,535.07 and 89,869.41), and for non-renewable energy consumption (42,188.16 and 89,487.71). Urbanization and population growth had positive impacts on energy consumption while these effects become more significant as moving from low to high-income quantiles. The study implies that while the developed nations can adopt energy-efficient policies without compromising on the growth momentum and environment, this might be not recommended for the developing nations and it would be preferable for these countries to "grow first and clean up later." The study indicates the importance of the developed nations to support the developing countries to achieve economic growth along the EEKC by transferring energy-efficient technologies.

Human activities and environmental quality: evidence beyond the conventional EKC hypothesis.

Due to several types of human activities, the environment of African countries has not improved. Moreover, environmental economists have criticised the traditional Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis because it does not analyse the feedback effect of the environment on economic growth and does not measure environmental pollution broadly. Besides, empirical studies that comprehensively measure the environment and examine the feedback effect are not available in Africa's case. In addition, findings concerning the association between human activities and Environmental Quality (EQ) have been paid limited attention to Africa, although 50% of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) focus on these issues. Therefore, this study examines the link between human activities and EQ as well as the effect of EQ on growth for 38 African countries from 2000 to 2018. The study found that EQ has a positive and non-linear association with human capital, technology, and urbanisation. However, it has a negative and non-linear association with GDP Per Capita (GDPPC) and trade openness. Further, EQ significantly increases GDPPC. The study also recommends that African countries need to invest in improving Human Development Index (HDI), use green or low-carbon technologies, reduce migration from rural to urban, develop comprehensive urban planning, and design and implement appropriate trade policies.

COVID-19 Stress and Teachers Well-Being: The Mediating Role of Sense of Coherence and Resilience.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted many professions with short-, medium-, and long-term consequences. Hence, this study examined the mediating role of sense of coherence (SOC) and resilience in the relation to COVID-19 stress and teachers' well-being (TWB). It recruited 836 teachers from Ethiopia's higher-education institutions, of which 630 (75.4%) were men and 206 (24.6%) were women, with a mean age of 32.81 years and a standard deviation of 6.42. Findings showed that COVID-19 stress negatively predicted SOC, resilience, and TWB and that SOC and resilience positively predicted TWB. It was concluded that SOC and resilience, both together and separately, mediated the relation between COVID-19 stress and TWB. These results were discussed alongside relevant literature, and the study is found to be valuable for practitioners and researchers who seek to improve well-being using SOC and resilience as resources across teaching professions.

Empirical Evidence for the Impact of Environmental Quality on Life Expectancy in African Countries.

BACKGROUND: Protecting the health of citizens is a central aim of sustainable development plans, due to the effect of health on social and economic development. However, studies show that environment-related diseases adversely affect the health status of a people, and this situation is worse for African countries. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) targets have included reducing environment-related deaths since 2015. However, there is a lack of empirical findings focused on the effects of environmental quality on life expectancy in Africa. OBJECTIVES: The present study examined the impact of environmental quality on life expectancy in 24 African countries. METHODS: Time-series data ranging from 2000 to 2016 was used and the panel autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL)-dynamic fixed effect (DFE) model was employed to analyze the data. RESULTS: The results confirmed that, in the long run, improvements in environmental quality significantly increased life expectancy in the studied African countries during the study period. A unit increment in environmental performance index (EPI) and ecosystem vitality (EV) increased the life expectancy of Africans by 0.137 and 0.1417 years, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first empirical (econometric) study using a broad measurement (indicator) of environmental quality to investigate its impact on life expectancy in African countries. The study recommends that the introduction of environmentally friendly economies (like renewable energy, land, water, and waste management), legal, socio-economic, demographic, and technological measures are essential to reduce environmental pollution and improve life expectancy in Africa. COMPETING INTERESTS: The authors declare no competing financial interests.