HEALTH OUTCOMES AND ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY NEXUS: AN ARDL APPROACH TO COINTEGRATION ANALYSIS FOR THE CASE OF NIGERIA

Abstract

Environmental degradation and pollutants have, over the years, deteriorates health outcomes 
through decline in life expectancy and rising mortality, notably from cardiovascular and 
respiratory-related diseases in less developed countries. This study adds to the existing 
literature on the environmental quality-health nexus within the context of Nigeria using the 
data from 1980 to 2021 sourced from World Bank’s World Development Indicators. Using 
autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach to cointegration, the findings of the study 
revealed the presence of long-run relationship between environmental quality and health 
outcomes proxied by carbon emission and life expectancy respectively as well as foreign direct 
investment (FDI) and labour force as control variables. Specifically, carbon emission per capita 
is found to have negative and statistically significant impact on life expectancy where a unit 
increase in carbon emission reduces life expectancy by 0.6872 and 0.7030 in both the short and 
long-run respectively. While FDI is reported to have significant impact on life expectancy in 
both short-run and long-run, labour force has no significant impact. These findings call for 
swift response from Nigeria’s government to treat pollution-induced health challenges as 
matter of urgent concern. In view of this, the study recommends, among others, transition from 
traditional energy sources of cooking fuels, notably solid fuels such as wood and charcoal 
which are among the major sources of respiratory illnesses to a cleaner source like LPG, 
ethanol, and improved cook stoves which minimizes indoor carbon emissions. This can be 
achieved by incorporating clean energy access in the social protection programmes and 
partnership with the leadership of local communities for the distribution of clean energy 
equipment at subsidized rate as well as massive awareness campaigns about the health effects 
associated with the traditional cooking energy sources. Also, establishing air quality sensors in 
major cities and industrial zones in order to enhance air quality monitoring cannot be over 
emphasized.