The Rise in Death Rate in Malaysia: Is it Due to Road Accidents, Suicide, Tuberculosis or Burden of Health Expenditure?

Over the past few decades, Malaysia has made major advancements in several areas, including infrastructure, healthcare, and economic development. However, the trend of death rate in Malaysia over a period of 20 years beginning in 2000 is alarming. It is noted that ageing is one of the common causes of death, and this study explores other related exploratory variables of death from road accidents, suicide, the incidence of tuberculosis, and health expenditure. In addition, this paper aims to provide a general guide on the use of visual and numerical assessments for multiple linear regression modelling using R which would benefit the R community with similar interests. The modelling assessment criteria in this study cover multicollinearity, serial correlation, goodness-of-fit, normality, and homoskedasticity to obtain a well-specified model for the rising death rate in Malaysia. It is noted that the inclusion of the lag-1 response variable in the final model has eliminated the serial correlation problem in the residuals. This study discovers that only health expenditure, tuberculosis rate, and short-term death rate are significant to the death rate. We suggest that without any precautions, there is a risk of tuberculosis being a positive contributor to the death rate. The well-specified final model also suggests that the death rate is positively dependent on health expenditure and short-term death rate. An additional unit of health expenditure and short-term death rate increases the death outcome by 0.44% and 0.84% while all other factors are held constant, respectively. Hence, we recommend that the government add subsidies to various medical expenses, such as diagnostic and treatment charges, to ease the burden of healthcare costs in public and private medical facilities. In addition, Malaysians should be motivated to purchase their personal health insurance while the government may encourage insurance and takaful providers to produce comprehensive medical protection at affordable prices.