Annuities and Sinking Funds

Over the years, research institutions and social scientists have delved deeply into poverty and health issues. The majority of studies treated poverty and health issues separately and the relationship connecting the two concepts is usually hidden (Peggy, 2003) and not linked to economic wellbeing.

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Poverty in its most general sense is the lack of necessities. Basic foodstuff, housing, health care, and safety that are generally thought indispensable based on shared ethics of human decorum. However, what is a requisite to one person is not consistently a requisite to others.

Needs may be relative to what is promising and are based on collective definition and past understanding (Sen, 1999).Central Bank of Nigeria [CBN] (2003) asserts that poverty concerns a person’s failure to provide sufficiently for the essential needs of foodstuff, clothes and housing. It reveals the failure to meet social and economic responsibilities; lack of profitable service, skills, assets and self respect. The place of CBN is attached on the limited accessibility to social and economic infrastructures such as health, education, convenient water and sanitation hence restraining the probability of advancing welfare to highest echelon of potential. While Augère-Granier (2017) referred poverty ofrural areas as the existence of exact weaknesses in rural districts that result in a advanced threat of poverty in contrast with urban districts. The seclusion of rural districts, lessen access to education, health facilities, weaker labour market, as well as dominance by an elderly population, among many.

According to Stuart, (2004), quoting the constitution of the World Health Organisation, as defining health to mean “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”. However, the definition of health by the WHO has been described by some researchers into health issues as idealist. Also, Mosby (2013) defined health as “a condition of physical, mental, and social well-being and the absence of disease or other abnormal condition. It is not a static condition. Constant change and adaptation to stress result in homeostasis”.

The study by Achia, Wangombe & Khadioli (2010) used a logistic regression technique to identify major determinants of poverty with demographic and health assessment data in Nairobi. The model was estimated based on the data amid the social and economic category (i.e. underprivileged and privileged) as the unexplained variable and a set of demographic variables (age of household head, household size, educational level of the household head, type of settlement (rural or urban), ethnicity and religion) as the explained variables. The results reveals that there are high echelon of poverty in settlements farther from the nation’s capital, Nairobi. Their study suggest that the demographic and health surveys data can be used to determine the correlates of poverty. However, their study did not incorporate the determinants of health outcomes in their study, and the study was not conducted in Nigeria.

Using descriptive with multivariate logistic regression techniques on primary data obtained from a national population assessment in Japan, Oshio& Khan (2014) focused their work on four proportions of poverty (i.e. education, income, social protection, and housing situation) and three health variables (self – rated health (SRH), psychological suffering, and status of smoking). Unions as combined procedures of several poverty measures were more valuable for discovering persons in deprived SRH or psychological suffering than one measurement, for instance income. In evaluating, connection of poverty measures abridged the exposure of those measured to be in poverty along with likelihood to be complicated in justifying with no several unambiguous policy point.

In a study, Wagstaff (2002) also analyzed the correlation involving poverty with health. The study found that poverty and sickness are knotted; poor nations are likely to contain poorer health outcomes than wealthier nations. Significantly too, it was identified that inside a nation, underprivileged citizens record poorer health outcomes than wealthier citizens (Wagsaff, 2002). Globally, ill-health can also exacerbate and perpetuate poverty (WHO, 2001). Thus, poverty rears sickness and sickness holds back the underprivileged citizens to be

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poorer. This association reinforces the evidence of causality running in both directions. Thus disadvantaged nations and underprivileged citizens inside a nation are bedeviled with diversity of dispossession that transform into higher susceptibility to diseases and death. The measuring of socio-economic inequalities in health has been a long tradition in Europe.

However less empirical work has been undertaken on the subject in other regions most especially in developing countries. In Europe it has been observed from empirical research that inequalities in health are almost always to the disadvantage of the poor: the poor tend to die earlier and to have higher levels of morbidity than the better-off.

Similarly, Nurudeen & Ibrahim (2014) used the bound testing approach, Co integration and Granger causality test towards establishing the connection involving human poverty and inequality as well as economic development of Nigeria. They used existing time series data for period covering 2000 upto 2012. In their examination of the underlying connectives between the variables under their study, their outcome demonstrates that a one way directional connecting association exist in succession from real gross domestic product (RGDP) to poverty, that meant a raise in RGDP of Nigeria will create higher echelon of poverty. Their result further infers to facilitate the two ways directional contributory association subsisted among literacy and poverty. Their study in addition revealed that residents development Granger causes literacy with no comment. The policy implication of their study was so as to demand supervision policies intend at plummeting the gap connecting the wealthy and underprivileged ought to be energetically followed sequentially to minimize the rate of persistent disparity within the nation.

Furthermore, Babatunde (2010) used a different method to analyze the annual time series data between 1970 - 2008 in studying the association between growth and health in Nigeria. The study used a simultaneous equation framework and found a quash causation among health outcome and economic development within Nigeria as well as a guide through which this connection transpire in human resources. Furthermore, economic development emerged to guide to larger health achievements, predominantly at little echelon of economic growth.

Likewise, Adeniyi & Abiodun (2011) analyzed the effects of health expenditure on the Nigerian economic growth, by means of data on life expectancy at birth (LE), fertility rate (FR), capital and recurrent expenditures (CRE) from 1985 to 2009 argued that if finances are prudently spent in the health division, the consequences of this spendings on the economic development will be straight and significant. Consequently, the call for the progress on the eminence and kind of health made available.

A robust study conducted by Riman & Akpan (2012) investigated the contributory path and long run association among poverty, government health expenditure as well as health status, in Nigeria .The study engaged the Granger Causality Test and Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) in setting up a tough contributory two ways directional association in succession amongst life expectation as well as poverty in Nigeria. Riman and Akpan’s findings as well reveals the continuation of a long – run association involving human poverty as well as health outcomes. Still, their study make known a non – important long – run association involving health situation as well as government health spending. Their work ended by initiating guidelines that could develop health outcome ought to be as such may encourage grown person literacy level, minimize the poverty as well as income inequality since, rising budgetary share to financially support health division only with no reduction in poverty level, would not be adequate to develop the health situation of the nation.

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Equally, Odubunmi, Saka & Oke (2012) studied the connection linking healthcare spending and economic development in Nigeria used for a time frame of 1970 upto 2009. Their study uses the Johansen cointegration method and establish the reality of at least one cointegrating vector unfolding a long run connection amongst health expenditure, economic growth, total saving, foreign aids as well as population. The cointegrating equations nevertheless reveals a number of divergences in terms of the signs of the coefficients of health expenditure and foreign aids that are pointed to several diversification of foreign aids to other uses or insufficient share to health services.

Omonona (2010) contends that the key determinants of Nigeria’s poor quality go afar from low incomes, savings, and development - which are frequently linked with the features of developing countries poor. Reasons of poverty consist of high level of disparity pointing to uneven access to income prospects, fundamental infrastructure, deprived education and health condition. Moreover, it is an established fact that Nigeria is among the most endowed countries in terms of human, material and mineral assets in the world but yet is graded as one of the unfortunate nations globally (Omonona, 2010). In the words of Abiola & Olaopa (2008) poverty is a scourge in Nigeria that is incontestable, and consequently leads to ignorance, hunger, malnutrition, unemployment, disease, deprived access to credit facilities, as well as low life expectancy and a common level of human despair.

A number of empirical researches to understand the nexus between poverty and health have been conducted. These research works (Babatunde, 2010; Odubunmi et al, 2012) among others are one sided in the sense that they particularly focused on how various government policies affect poverty reduction and not if the wellbeing performance are health related.

However, none of such study to the extent of literature search by the author has been published on the poverty and health nexus in rural communities of Nasarawa state, Nigeria.

This study is therefore designed to fill this gap.

3.0 Methodology