Combination of survival analysis and neural networks to relate life expectancy at birth to lifestyle, environment, and health care resources indicators

Abstract

This paper aims to shed light on the contribution of determinants to the health status of the population and to provide evidence on whether or not these determinants are producing similar results from two different statistical methods, across OECD countries. In this study, one output - Life Expectancy (LE) at birth of the total population - and three inputs are included. The inputs represent the three main dimensions of health outcome production: health resources (measured by health spending or the number of health practitioners), socioeconomic environment (pollution, education and income) and lifestyle (tobacco, alcohol and diet). A variable expressing country specificities is also used. Two independent statistical analyses, resulted that health resources and country specific effects are more closely related to LE. © 2011 International Federation for Information Processing.