Rule of Law and Public Health

While wider social factors have been associated with public health outcomes, the role of the overall legal and institutional framework of countries (the Rule of Law) in public health has not been thoroughly studied. This research aims to evaluate the association between counties' adherence to the rule of law, and public health indicators (infant mortality and maternal mortality rates) in 66 countries. An ecological design is used to explore this association taking into account a country's wealth, its level of inequality, and the size of its population. Data comes from the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index 2011 and the World Health Organization. The results show an association between rule of law and public health indicators independent of country's GDP, GINI coefficient, and total population; the greater the country's level of adherence to the rule of law, the better the health of the population (lower infant and maternal mortality rates). This association is a first step to understand the role of the rule of law on public health. The rule of law appears to be like the immune system of society; it may be a precondition for a myriad of life-sustaining activities, such as the protection of the environment and sources of drinkable water; effective public health responses to pandemic infectious diseases; delivery of medicines and medical supplies; efforts to combat dangerous counterfeited medicines; among others. It is necessary to further study this association, and to start considering the country's rule of law as a determinant of health.