Electronic Theses and Dissertations (Masters)

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Browsing Electronic Theses and Dissertations (Masters) by SDG "SDG-3: Good health and well-being"

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    Associations between economic preferences and behavioural health intentions among young adults living in an informal settlement
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-03) Andrady, Wayne Jude; Booysen, Frikkie
    The emergence of non-communicable diseases in South Africa, most notably among the urban poor, is resulting in an increased burden of diseases. Since NCDs can develop in distinct periods of the life course, post-adolescence-intentions to engage in health behaviours need to be investigated. Furthermore, there is consistent evidence that health behaviours are associated with economic preferences. Yet, it is unclear whether economic preferences are also associated with behavioural health intentions. Objectives: The study aims to examine how risk-taking and patience are associated with behavioural health intentions among young adults in a poor informal urban settlement in South Africa. The study also explores whether there are gender differences in behavioural health intentions and whether these economic preferences contribute to gender gaps in behavioural health intentions. Data and Methods: The study utilized secondary survey data collected from a sample of 240 young adults using a structured questionnaire. The study collected data on behavioural intentions for seven health- protective and health-harming behaviours. Risk-taking and patience are measured using qualitative, quantitative and combined measures from the Global Preference Survey. Ordered probit and seemingly unrelated regression models were estimated and t-tests were employed to quantify gender gaps, followed by the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition analysis. Findings The study reveals that economic preferences have a moderate association with behavioural health intentions among young adults. However, these results seem contradictory to priori expectations and further research is required. Our findings emphasize the importance of recognizing and addressing the limitations associated with imperfect measures of economic preferences when investigating their association with health behavioural intentions
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    Loss of household income and self- reported health during the covid-19 lockdown in South Africa
    (© University of the Witswatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023) Pillay, Cayla
    The COVID-19 pandemic struck the world unexpectedly and caused a detrimental economic and health crisis worldwide. Globally, lockdown protocols were implemented to ease the pandemic's initial effects, and South Africa was no exception. This paper provides evidence of the relationship between loss of household income and self-reported health. This study uses a fixed-effects Linear Probability Model (LPM), and the results present a negative relationship between loss of household income and self-reported health. The changes in lockdown levels have no significant effect on loss of income. The outcomes suggest that when income is lost, the health of individuals tends to deteriorate.
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    The technical efficiency of country responses to the COVID-19 pandemic
    (niversity of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-02) Desjardins, Armand; Booysen, Frederik
    The COVID-19 pandemic saw the most comprehensive implementation in history of pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions by governments around the world. A better understanding of how efficient these interventions are, especially given their high economic costs to society is pivotal in designing similar policy for future outbreaks of this nature. This research estimates the technical efficiency of country responses to the COVID-19 pandemic using a Stochastic Frontier Analysis model and panel dataset combining indicators from the Our World in Data (OWID), Google Movement Index and World Bank Economic Indicators databases. The SFA regression also corrects for endogeneity in the input variables, as policy stringency tends to be influenced by the number of cases in each country. To do so, the OWID stringency index is used as an instrumental variable for each of the policy inputs to correct for the endogenous relationship between the input and output variables. The study found that the correction of technical efficiency estimates for endogeneity using the xtsfkk routine in Stata was an appropriate estimation strategy. The exogenously and endogenously estimated efficiency scores furthermore differed statistically significantly, with exogenously estimated scores representing overestimates of technical efficiency. Vaccination policies proved to be the most technically efficient channel of prevention followed by stay-at-home restrictions. A second stage OLS regression was used to estimate the effects of selected drivers on the technical efficiency scores computed in the Stage 1 SFA model. Health expenditure as a % of GDP, hospital beds per 1,000 population, and physicians per 1,000 population were all positively related to technical efficiency. Countries with reactive and flexible policy approaches, able to increase policy intensity levels based on COVID-19 waves, were found to obtain higher technical efficiency scores than wealthy countries. Improvements in the level of detail on the drivers of technical efficiency and the adoption of machine learning techniques to estimate efficiency scores are recommended to extend research in this area past its current scope