Topic

Health outcomes and social expenditure

Arif Ahmed
Arif Ahmed • 13 May 2016

You may be interested in this report on the link between health outcomes and social expenditure:

http://www.rand.org/randeurope/research/projects/are-better-health-outcomes-related-to-social-expenditure-.html

Some of the findings include:

  • Across OECD countries, higher levels of social spending are strongly associated with better health.
  • The association is particularly strong for public social spending, as opposed to private social spending.
  • Spending on old age programmes demonstrated the strongest association with better health outcomes, including in unexpected areas such as infant mortality and low birth weight.
  • The association between social spending and better health strengthens over time.
  • Social factors, such as income inequality and social capital (a measure of how much people trust each other in a population), are associated with health outcomes.
  • The association between social spending and health outcomes is strongest where income inequality is greatest. In other words, social protection may be more important for health outcomes in more unequal societies.

Comments (1)

Suhana Ahmed
Suhana Ahmed

Worrking in old age, it's Interesting that the spending in old age programmes is associated with better health outcomes your would not expect such as infant mortality. Wonder what the possible mechanisms for that could be.?


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