Abstract
OBJECTIVES: Infectious diseases present significant challenges to global health security in contemporary, interconnected global environments. This study aimed to evaluate and compare health security performance in Western Asia (WA), with a focus on income group-based disparities and region-specific insights. METHODS: This study utilized the Global Health Security Index (GHSI) to assess health security across 17 WA countries categorized by income level. Health security indicators for 2019 and 2021 were analyzed using the D-CRITIC method to determine the relative importance of each indicator (Global Health Security Index, 2021): https://ghsindex.org/report-model/). A combined D-CRITIC-CoCoSo framework was employed to rank the countries, followed by K-means clustering for grading. The study also investigated correlations between financial allocation's indicators and health security outcomes using Spearman's rank correlation. A comparative analysis elucidated regional disparities across income categories. RESULTS: This study highlights WA's progress in health security by prioritizing foundational health systems, detection/reporting, rapid response, and risk management. From 2019 to 2021, priorities varied by income group, with high-income countries focusing on detection, upper-middle-income countries focusing on risk environments, and low-income countries focusing on prevention. While some nations demonstrated improvement, others, such as Armenia, experienced decline, revealing persistent vulnerabilities. This study revealed significant variability in health security capacity, with both progress and setbacks among countries in different clusters. High- and upper-middle-income countries, such as Qatar and Georgia, leverage investments and international partnerships to improve their rankings, while conflict-affected, low-resource countries, including Iraq, Yemen, and Syria, face stagnation or decline. Strong correlations were observed between financial resource allocation indicators and health performance. Higher investments in countries like Armenia and Georgia led to significantly improved health outcomes, while minimal spending in Syria and Yemen weakened their resilience to health threats. CONCLUSION: Disparities in health resilience persist, underscoring the need for equitable resource allocation and regional cooperation to enhance public health security.