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How effective are public health departments at preventing mortality?

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  • Brown, Timothy Tyler

Abstract

This study estimates the causal impact of variation in the expenditures of California county departments of public health on all-cause mortality rates and the associated value of lives saved. Since the activities of county departments of public health are likely to affect mortality rates with a lag, Koyck distributed lag models are estimated using the Lewbel instrumental variables estimator. The findings show that an additional $10 per capita of public health expenditures reduces all-cause mortality by 9.1 deaths per 100,000. At current funding levels, the long-run annual number of lives saved by the presence of county departments of public health in California is estimated to be approximately 27,000 (26,937 lives, 95% confidence interval: [11,963, 41,911]). The annual value of these lives is estimated to be worth $212.8 billion using inflation-adjusted standard U.S. government estimates of the value of a statistical life ($7.9 million).

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  • Brown, Timothy Tyler, 2014. "How effective are public health departments at preventing mortality?," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 13(C), pages 34-45.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ehbiol:v:13:y:2014:i:c:p:34-45
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ehb.2013.10.001
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    2. Timothy Tyler Brown & Vishnu Murthy, 2020. "Do public health activities pay for themselves? The effect of county‐level public health expenditures on county‐level public assistance medical care benefits in California," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(10), pages 1220-1230, October.
    3. Steven F. Koch & Evelyn Thsehla, 2022. "The impact of diabetes on labour market outcomes," Development Southern Africa, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(3), pages 424-456, May.
    4. Fortin, Bernard & Ragued, Safa, 2017. "Does temporary interruption in postsecondary education induce a wage penalty? Evidence from Canada," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 108-122.
    5. Ammi, Mehdi & Arpin, Emmanuelle & Dedewanou, F. Antoine & Allin, Sara, 2024. "Do expenditures on public health reduce preventable mortality in the long run? Evidence from the Canadian provinces," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 345(C).
    6. Waziri, Salisu Ibrahim & Mohamed Nor, Norashidah & Law, Siong Hook & Hassan, Azman, 2018. "Access to Safe Drinking Water, Good Sanitation, Occurrence of Under-Five Mortality and Standard of Living in Developing Countries: System GMM Approach," Jurnal Ekonomi Malaysia, Faculty of Economics and Business, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, vol. 52(2), pages 279-289.
    7. Jie Liu & Ziqiang Han & Justin Veuthey & Ben Ma, 2020. "How investment in public health has impacted the prevalence of tuberculosis in China: A study of provincial variations between 2005 and 2015," International Journal of Health Planning and Management, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(6), pages 1546-1558, November.
    8. Piekalkiewicz, Marcin, 2016. "Money, Social Capital and Materialism. Evidence from Happiness Data," EconStor Preprints 130185, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    9. Craig Arthur Gallet, 2017. "The Impact of Public Health Spending on California STD Rates," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 23(2), pages 149-159, May.
    10. Seuring, Till & Serneels, Pieter & Suhrcke, Marc, 2019. "The impact of diabetes on labour market outcomes in Mexico: A panel data and biomarker analysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 233(C), pages 252-261.
    11. Yoon, Jangho & Luck, Jeff, 2016. "Intersystem return on investment in public mental health: Positive externality of public mental health expenditure for the jail system in the U.S," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 133-142.
    12. Carrieri, V.; Jones, A.M.;, 2017. "Intergenerational transmission of nicotine within families: have e-cigarettes had an impact?," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 17/03, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    13. Stephen Martin & James Lomas & Karl Claxton, 2019. "Is an ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure? Estimates of the impact of English public health grant on mortality and morbidity," Working Papers 166cherp, Centre for Health Economics, University of York.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Public health expenditures; All-cause mortality; Lewbel instrumental variables; Dynamic panel models; California;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H75 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Government: Health, Education, and Welfare
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

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