The application of policy composite indicators to predicting the health risk and recovery: a global comparative investigation

Objectives: There emerges increasing doubt regarding whether the policy composite indicators are applicable to the COVID-19 pandemic. A few early studies demonstrate that the association between some composite indicators of policy preparedness and the risk of COVID-19 is statistically insignificant, and the relation between any composite indicators and recovery process (e.g., vaccination coverage) remains unexplored. To examine the relation between composite indicators and pandemic risk (as well as the vaccination coverage) with robustness, this study applies different policy preparedness indicators by using data from multi-sources.Study design: A cross-sectional analysis was performed.Method: Regression analysis is adopted to examine the relation between four policy preparedness indicators (i.e., [1] International Health Regulations core capacity index, [2] Global Health Security Index, [3] epidemic preparedness index, and [4] World Governance Index) and COVID-19-confirmed cases/ death/vaccination coverage at different time points. The linear regression is performed, and the spatial distribution of indicators are illustrated.Results: Countries with higher ranking in policy preparedness indexes can experience less severity of pandemic risk (e.g., confirmed cases and mortality) and faster recovery process (e.g., higher vaccination coverage). However, slight disparity in effectiveness exists across different indicators.Conclusion: Results show that the policy preparedness indicators have predictive value of the confirmed cases, mortality, and vaccination coverage of COVID-19 pandemic, given sufficiently long-time span is observed.(c) 2023 The Royal Society for Public Health. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study examines the relationship between policy preparedness indicators and the risk of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the vaccination coverage. It finds that countries with higher ranking in policy preparedness indexes experience less severity of pandemic risk and faster recovery process. However, there is a slight disparity in effectiveness across different indicators.