Introduction: Economic growth in the literature is considered as a function of labor, capital, education level, and labor productivity. However, it can be affected by mental, physical, and emotional health. Accordingly, this paper aimed to estimate the impact of health on economic growth by using the production function method.
Method: the research population, in this cause-effect study, consisted of all countries with the high and very high human development index. The data for the period 1975 to 2014 from14 countries with very high human development index and 15 countries with high human development index were collected from the United Nations publications and Penn World Tables. EVIEWS software is used to analyze the collected data. In addition, life expectancy was used as the proxy for community health. Given that increased life expectancy increases workers’ experience, experience and its square were included into the research model.
Results: The results indicated a positive relationship between health and economic growth. This finding suggests that one year of increase in life expectancy caused a 4% increase in economic growth.
Conclusion: Promoting the community health leads to increased economic growth which can improve financial capacity and health expenditures as well as improving community health. This finding indicates that a healthy society will be rich. Therefore community health should be considered when planning for growth.