Investigating the Asymmetric and Nonlinear Effects of Environmental Pollution, Misery Index, Food Production Index, Urbanization Rate, and Household Final Consumption on Life Expectancy in Iran

Background: Examining the effects of environmental pollution emissions, the misery index, the food index, the urbanization rate, and household final consumption on life expectancy in Iran can provide valuable insights for policymakers. Therefore, this study investigates the impacts of these indicators. Methods: In the present study, with the approach of health economics, the effect of the variables of emission of environmental pollutants, especially CO2 emission, misery index, food index, urbanization rate and household final consumption on the life expectancy of Iranians was estimated using Markov switching regression in in Oxmetrics software for the period 1990 to 2021. Life expectancy was modeled through two regimes: regime1, representing high life expectancy, and regime 2, representing low life expectancy Results: The results indicated that CO2 emission variable in both regimes has had a negative and significant effect on life expectancy. In regime 1, there is a negative and significant relationship between the variable of the misery index and life expectancy, which is estimated to be negative and insignificant in regime 2. The food index has a positive effect on life expectancy in both regimes.. In a way, this relationship has been estimated to be significant in regime 1 and non-significant in regime 2. The observed relationship between the urbanization rate variable is negative and significant in regime 1 and positive and significant in regime two. Therefore, it can be said that it had an asymmetric effect on life expectancy. Household final consumption in both regimes has had a positive and significant effect on the life expectancy of Iranians, and its coefficient is higher in regime 1 than regime 2. Conclusion: Based on the findings of this study, the following policy recommendations are proposed: controlling inflation and reducing unemployment, strengthening social support programs, and protecting the environment. Therefore, policymakers are encouraged to adopt a comprehensive and integrated approach that addresses both economic and environmental dimensions in order to ensure sustainable health and well-being for future generations.