Public Health Expenditure and Under-five Mortality in Nigeria: An Overview for Policy Intervention

Dominic E. Azuh; Romanus Osabohien; Mary Orbih; Abigail Godwin

doi:10.3889/oamjms.2020.4327

Authors

Dominic E. Azuh Department of Economics and Development Studies, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria
Romanus Osabohien Department of Economics and Development Studies, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria; 2Centre for Economic Policy and Development Research (CEPDeR), Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria
Mary Orbih Department of Sociology, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria
Abigail Godwin Department of Economics and Development Studies, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3889/oamjms.2020.4327

Keywords:

Health policy, Health management, Health expenditure, Under-five mortality

Abstract

AIM: This study looked at the contribution of the health expenditure by the government on under-five mortality in Nigeria.

METHODS: The autoregressive distribution lag technique was employed in this study in examining the long-run effect of public health expenditure on under-five mortality in Nigeria. Data were sourced from the World Development Indicators for the period 1985–2017.

RESULTS: Results from the study showed that though public health expenditure is statistically significant, it showed a positive relationship with the under-five mortality.

CONCLUSION: The implication of this result is that 1 unit increase in public health expenditure would improve increase under-five mortality rate by 1.56 units. However, in the Nigerian context, this can be better explained by the lack of proper health-fund coordination and other factors such as maternal education. Therefore, the study concluded by recommending that proper health-fund coordination should be put in place to ensure that budget allocated to the health sector is being spent properly.

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