The objective of this study is to examine the dynamic effect between oil prices, inflation, on health status in Nigeria, while controlling for government health expenditure, poverty, and the exchange rate. Using the annual data set, the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) technique is employed for the analysis. The order of integration of the variables is checked using the ADF and PP tests. The result shows that the variables are of mixed order of integration. This justifies the use of the ARDL model. The long-run result of the model shows that oil prices have a positive and significant relationship with health status (coefficient = 0.28, p < 0.05). This implies that good oil price conditions can support the enhancement of health status. In the same vein, poverty has a significant relationship with health status. This implies that the structural effect of poverty on health status is significant. However, the long-run result of the model shows that inflation has a negative and significant relationship with health status (coefficient = -0.21, p < 0.05). This implies that the increase in the price level reduces the ability of people to access healthcare services. Government health expenditure and the exchange rate are statistically insignificant in the short-run and long-run models. The error correction term is significant with the correct sign. This implies that the long-run relationship exists. The result of the diagnostic tests shows that serial correlation and heteroscedasticity are not significant. The CUSUM and CUSUMSQ tests confirm the stability of the model. This study contributes to the literature on the relationship that exists between the macroeconomic variables of oil prices, inflation, and health status in Nigeria. The study integrates oil prices with the analysis of the relationship that exists between inflation and health status using the ARDL technique.
Oghenechovwere et al. (Thu,) studied this question.