The Estimation of Effective Socio-Economic Factors on Health Production Function in Provinces of Iran

This paper studies effective elements role on health status in Iran by estimating a health production function. It has been supposed that the health is affected by medical care, socioeconomic, environmental and lifestyle factors. Medical care expenditure per capita, income per capita, unemployment and literacy rates, nutrition pattern, married household rate, tobacco consumption per capita, urbanization rate and industrial employment rate have been applied as effective factors on health function. The data applied in this study is the panel data of the 28 provinces during the years 2000-2004. The results indicate that, an increase in medical care expenditure per capita will not have a significant effect on the health status in Iran, but an increase in employment rate, literacy rate, urbanization rate, income per capita and good nutrition models will improve health in the country. Also unemployment and literacy rates have the largest coefficients among the mentioned variables.