Analysis of the Linkage Between Health Public Expenditures and Health Outcomes at the European Union Level

Abstract

The paper investigates the linkage between public health expenditure and general health among all the European Union member states. Using the regression analysis we considered three independent variables (health expenditure, GDP/capita growth and number of nurses and midwives per 1000 inhabitants) and 2 dependent variables (life expectancy and infant mortality rate) to build two multifactorial regressions. Following the results, we were able to see that an increase in health expenditure generates an increase in life expectancy. Nevertheless, an increase in health expenditure generates a decrease in the infant mortality rate.

Keywords

• health public expenditure
• life expectancy
• european union