The Future of Morbidity and Increasing Productivity in Indonesia
Abstract
Good health and well-being constitute the third goal of the Sustainable Development Goals. One of the key indicators for assessing health-sector development is the morbidity rate. Morbidity reduces productivity and income per worker, thereby affecting broader economic performance. In Indonesia, development disparities remain evident between provinces in Java and those outside Java. This study aims to analyse the effects of economic, social, environmental, lifestyle, and health-service factors on morbidity in Java and outside Java. The study employs panel data regression using secondary data from Statistics Indonesia for the period 2017–2024, covering six provinces in Java and 28 provinces outside Java. The results show that social factors, particularly education, have a negative and significant effect on morbidity in Java. Outside Java, environmental factors, represented by access to decent housing, have a negative and significant effect on morbidity, while lifestyle factors, represented by smoking, and health-service factors, represented by unmet need for health services, have positive and significant effects. These findings highlight the importance of improving individual awareness of the role of smoking in increasing morbidity, which may ultimately reduce productivity and per capita income. The study also emphasizes the need for targeted interventions to reduce health-service gaps between Java and regions outside Java, particularly by lowering unmet needs for health services and reducing morbidity outside Java. Overall, the findings confirm that the determinants of morbidity differ significantly between Java and outside Java. Spatially targeted interventions that consider multidimensional factors may help reduce morbidity, improve labor productivity, and support economic growth in Indonesia.
Keywords: Economic factors; Environmental factors; Health services; Lifestyle; Morbidity; Social factors.
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