Capacidade de saúde e cidadania: convergências empíricas e teóricas entre qualidade da democracia e saúde pública na América Latina (2000-2019)

Abstract

The study assesses the effect that democracies, of varying levels of quality, have on public health in Latin America between 2000 and 2019. Public health is portrayed based on Ruger's (2009) conceptualization of health capacity in States of Justice. Health capacity, human flourishing so that individuals can select their ways of life and valuable actions, becomes feasible in regimes that allow public participation and the treatment of health as a human right. To determine the possible relationship between quality of democracy and (capacity for) health, correlation tests and analysis of variance are applied, with complementary tests to aggregate indicators related to the variables. studied. The independent variable is the Participatory Democracy Index of the Varieties of Democracy (V-DEM) project, and the dependent variables, infant mortality and life expectancy rates. The main finding is a strong association between quality of democracy and public health. On a scale of 0 to 1, democracies of a quality greater than 0.4 have a positive impact on public health, especially when there is greater diffusion of universal social welfare policies. In addition, the results from the analysis of variance demonstrate the difficulty with this type of statistical test for the treated elements.