Public health financing and health outcomes in Nigeria

A review of literature showed the role of governance has largely been neglected while investigating the health care financing impact on health outcomes in Nigeria. This study filled this gap by introducing governance to the nexus between financing of health care and health outcomes for the case of Nigeria. The study sought to assess the relationship among expenditure on public health, governance as well as health outcomes. For the empirical analysis, the study adopts data ranging from 1985 to the year 2018. The study made use of an error correction model (ECM) for the short run analysis while an autoregressive distributed lagged (ARDL) model was adopted for examining the long run relationships between the variables of the study. The result showed that public expenditure on health has a positive significant impact on life expectancy in Nigeria. The result also shows that increase in public expenditure on health leads to a reduction in the infant mortality rate. The study recommended an increase in the government expenditure on health. The study also recommended the provision of infrastructural facilities in the rural areas in order to checkmate the high rate of rural urban migration to avoid densely populated urban areas.