The social network of international health aid

Han, Lu, Koenig-Archibugi, Mathias ORCID: 0000-0003-4637-9477 and Opsahl, Tore (2018) The social network of international health aid. Social Science & Medicine, 206. pp. 67-74. ISSN 0277-9536

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Abstract

International development assistance for health generates an emergent social network in which policy makers in recipient countries are connected to numerous bilateral and multilateral aid agencies and to other aid recipients. Ties in this global network are channels for the transmission of knowledge, norms and influence in addition to material resources, and policy makers in centrally situated governments receive information faster and are exposed to a more diverse range of sources and perspectives. Since diversity of perspectives improves problem-solving capacity, the structural position of aid-receiving governments in the health aid network can affect the health outcomes that those governments are able to attain. We apply a recently developed Social Network Analysis measure to health aid data for 1990-2010 to investigate the relationship between country centrality in the health aid network and improvements in child health. A generalized method of moments (GMM) analysis indicates that, controlling for the volume of health aid and other factors, higher centrality in the health aid network is associated with better child survival rates in a sample of 110 low and middle income countries.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://www.journals.elsevier.com/social-science-a...
Additional Information:	© 2018 Elsevier B.V.
Divisions:	Government International Relations
Subjects:	J Political Science > JZ International relations R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine
Date Deposited:	20 Apr 2018 11:26
Last Modified:	29 Feb 2024 19:15
Funders:	Agence Française de Développement
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/87593

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