Effects of Environmental Degradation on Health Outcome: A Case of Pakistan

Abstract

This study investigates the dynamic relationship between environmental degradation, specifically carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions, and public health outcomes in Pakistan over the period 1980–2023. Employing the Auto-regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach and the Error Correction Model (ECM), the research explores both short-run and long-run effects of CO₂ emissions on life expectancy and infant mortality. Additional socioeconomic variables, including public health expenditure, secondary school enrollment, food production index, and age dependency ratio, are incorporated to capture their moderating roles on health outcomes. The findings indicate that the high levels of CO₂ emissions have a serious negative long-term effect on the life expectancy, and it is possible to confirm the harmful role of environmental decline on the health of the population. The relationship between health expenditure in the short run is intricate, although there are also positive outcomes in the long run, there are also adverse outcomes that may be caused by reactive spending in health crises. Education is shown to have delayed yet positive relationship with health with the focus on long-run investment in human capital. The ECM confirms that there is a stable connection between the long-run, and about 69 percent of short-term disequilibrium in life expectancy is resolved each year. The results highlight the importance of active environmental control, effective investment in the health sector, and increased access to education in developing economies such as Pakistan as a solution to reduce the negative health impacts of environmental deterioration. This study uniquely contributes to the literature by providing country-specific, long-run empirical evidence on the environment-health nexus Pakistan.