Progressive Health Spending and Health Outcomes in Nigeria: The Case of Malaria

In Nigeria, malaria incidence has been observed to impose sizable economic burden on households and national health outcomes at large. Evidence suggests this illness affects production by reducing household’s labour supply and the household’s ability to effectively utilize resources. Successive Nigerian governments have been making efforts at ensuring that there is an improvement in the level of health outcome through health expenditure on malaria incidence, in addition to increased health spending nationally to meet a subset of the millennium development goals six which is malaria reduction. Yet, health outcomes reports in Nigeria are still worrisome. Thus, this study investigated the progressive implication of Malaria incidence and malaria spending on Nigeria health outcomes using the production function health model with macroeconomic variables from 1970 to 2013. The study observed that health expenditure and educational expenditure are the major means government spends on malaria incidence in terms of providing essential infrastructural services. This paper argues that implementing necessary health policies will enhance national productivity. This is because healthier people work more and are physically and cognitively stronger.