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Dissertation
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND CAPABILITY DEVELOPMENT: REFINING THE EPIDEMIOLOGICAL TRANSITION THEORY AND THE ROLE OF NGOS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRY HEALTH FROM 2000-2019
Washington State University
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
07/2024
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000007063
Abstract
This dissertation is composed of three empirical chapters that apply often-used theoretical explanations of cross-national variation in health outcomes to the study of chronic noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The first two empirical chapters examine the extent to which oft-used theories of development can be used to refine the Epidemiological Transition theory, which explains the increase in chronic illness. The third empirical chapter pivots from the Epidemiological Transition theory to understand external efforts to develop LMICs. These studies use longitudinal data from the World Bank and the Yearbook of International Organizations to analyze country-level characteristics that shape both mortality from NCDs and infant mortality over time. While the relationship between country-level factors and infant mortality is fairly well-established in previous research, the three studies
in this dissertation represent novel application of the theories to NCD mortality. Analyses for infant mortality included as a well-researched counterpoint to understand how each type of mortality may be shaped differently by countries’ characteristics. The first study, Chapter 2, applies an Economic Development framework to understand how changes to country economic characteristics are associated with the Epidemiological Transition. The second empirical chapter,
Chapter 3, acknowledges critiques of an economic development perspective, to analyze how changes to countries’ infrastructure and development shape each type of mortality over time. The final study, Chapter 4, examines the role that health-related nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) may play in improving health outcomes in resource-poor developing countries. In this chapter, I analyze the relationship between NGOs and mortality both on their own and in conjunction with other country-level characteristics. Overall, my findings suggest that mortality from chronic disease is likely shaped quite differently by country-level characteristics than other well-established health outcomes. This dissertation represents a contribution to global health literature by identifying aggregate social determinants of health for the neglected outcome of chronic disease in a cross-national low- and middle-income country context.
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Details
- Title
- ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND CAPABILITY DEVELOPMENT
- Creators
- Cassandra Althea Leonard
- Contributors
- Alair MacLean (Chair)Mariana Amorim (Committee Member)Justin T Denney (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Department of Sociology
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 197
- Identifiers
- 99901152337301842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation