Abstract
Purpose. The purpose of this study is to ascertain which elements of infrastructures of the world's most advanced nations promote health status. Theoretical framework. Factor analysis was used to create a variable representative of health status. Six multivariate models were constructed to consider the effects of "best" predictors, expenditures, environment, hospital and physician utilization, and lifestyle upon health status. Methodology. This study utilized aggregate (secondary) data relative to fourteen of the world's most highly advanced industrialized nations, including the United States, to identify infrastructurel determinants of health status in 1995. Both bivariate and multivariate analyses were performed relative to average life expectancy at birth and an original dependent variable representative of health status that was derived from the OECD data set. Findings. Expenditures for outpatient services, investment in medical facilities, and access to wastewater treatment were found to correlate significantly with health status. One multivariate model comprising expenditures for outpatient services and access to wastewater treatment was found to be especially powerful as an explanator. Conclusions and recommendations. As ongoing efforts to reform the American health care system are underway, there is a need to restructure the means by which health care is financed and administered. This work considers and suggests that efforts toward reform be redoubled with a view toward underscoring wellness, and the factors that relate most closely to health status, as the criteria upon which such efforts are based. Inferred is that a program of national health insurance, taken together as a part of a national health policy, would serve well both in the interests of cost containment and health promotion.