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The financing of public health systems and services relies on a complex and fragmented web of partners and funding priorities. Both underfunding and "dys-funding" contribute to preventable mortality, increases in disease frequency and severity, and hindered social and economic growth. These issues were both illuminated and magnified by the COVID-19 pandemic and associated responses. Further complicating issues is the difficulty in constructing adequate estimates of current public health resources and necessary resources. Each of these challenges inhibits the delivery of necessary services, leads to inequitable access and resourcing, contributes to resource volatility, and presents other deleterious outcomes. However, actions may be taken to defragment complex funding paradigms toward more flexible spending, to modernize and standardize data systems, and to assure equitable and sustainable public health investments.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed consequences of past defunding of the U.S. public health system, but the extent to which public health infrastructure is associated with COVID-19 burden is unknown. We aimed to determine whether previous county-level public health expenditures and community health planning activities are associated with COVID-19 cases and deaths. We examined 3050 of 3143 U.S. counties and county equivalents from March 1, 2020 to February 28, 2022. Multivariable-adjusted linear regression and generalized additive models were used to estimate associations between county-level public health expenditures and completion of community health planning activities by a county health department with outcomes of county-level COVID-19 cases and deaths per 100,000 population. After adjusting for county-level covariates, counties in the highest tertile of public health expenditures per capita had on average 542 fewer COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population (95% CI, -1004 to -81) and 21 fewer deaths per 100,000 population (95% CI, -32 to -10) than counties in the lowest tertile. For analyses of community health planning activities, adjusted estimates of association remained negative for COVID-19 deaths, but confidence intervals included negative and positive values. In conclusion, higher levels of local public health expenditures and community health planning activities were associated with fewer county-level COVID-19 deaths, and to a lesser extent, cases. Future public health funding should be aligned with evidence for the value of county health departments programs and explore further which types of spending are most cost effective.

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Abstract The objective of this study was to assess the impact of local health department (LHD) expenditures on population health measures using counties as the unit of analysis. An observational research design is used to examine whether public health benefits are associated with higher levels of public health funding. Linear probability multivariate regression models with the use of local level cross-sectional and panel data are employed. A 1-year and a 2-year lag structure are also used to quantify the longer term public health effects of changes in LHD expenditures. Analyses were performed at the county level using local data representing 2120 LHDs, covering 48 US states. Expenditure data from the National Association of County and City Health Officials Profile Surveys and public health measures from County Health Rankings Annual Reports are used. Four public health measures are examined-obesity prevalence, sexually transmitted diseases, diabetes prevalence, and human immunodeficiency virus prevalence. Results from cross-sectional, pooled ordinary least squares, and panel data with fixed effects reveal that increased LHD expenditures per capita were not associated with any of the population health outcomes studied. Multivariate linear regression results using a 1- and 2-year lag structure reveal similar results: funding was not significantly predictive of better public health outcomes. The study design did not control for the potential endogeneity of public health funding. More detailed data and robust research approaches are needed to disentangle the effect and effectively answer whether increased public funding translates to improved population health.

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O objetivo deste artigo é analisar o financiamento da saúde pública no Brasil, em especial as consequências da adoção do novo regime fiscal. Para isso, o método utilizado foi o levantamento bibliográfico nas principais bases de dados disponíveis, complementado por textos jornalísticos e análise das Ações Diretas de Inconstitucionalidade n. 5.595 e n. 5.658, que discutiram o tema. O artigo é dividido em quatro partes: (i) introdução sobre a constitucionalização do direito à saúde; (ii) exposição sobre os modos de financiamento da saúde pública, com enfoque nas Emendas Constitucionais n. 29/2000, n. 86/2015 e n. 95/2016; (iii) exame dos impactos do novo regime fiscal no setor da saúde, com destaque para suas implicações na judicialização da saúde; e (iv) a conclusão de que o novo regime fiscal trouxe medidas de austeridade que, além de reduzirem os recursos disponíveis para a saúde, impedem a expansão dos serviços de atendimento à população e têm grande potencial de aumentar as demandas judiciais por tratamentos e medicamentos.

The objective of this article is to analyze public health funding in Brazil, especially the consequences of the newly adopted fiscal regime. The method used was bibliographical survey, gathering articles from the main available databases, newspaper articles and the analysis of the Direct Actions of Unconstitutionality no. 5595 and no. 5658, which discussed the matter. The article is divided into four parts: (i) an introduction on the constitutionalization of the right to health; (ii) an exposition on public health funding approaches focusing on the Constitutional Amendments number 29/2000, 86/2015 and 95/2016; (iii) the examination of the impacts of the new fiscal regime on the health sector and a highlight of the impact of these measures in cases of health judicialization; and (iv) with the conclusion that the new fiscal regime has introduced austerity measures, which, in addition to reducing the health resources available, discourage the expansion of public health care, leading to a great potential of increasing legal demands for treatments and medicines.

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The United States has a complex governmental public health system. Agencies at the federal, state, and local levels all contribute to the protection and promotion of the population's health. Whether the modern public health system is well situated to deliver essential public health services, however, is an open question. In some part, its readiness relates to how agencies are funded and to what ends. A mix of Federalism, home rule, and happenstance has contributed to a siloed funding system in the United States, whereby health agencies are given particular dollars for particular tasks. Little discretionary funding remains. Furthermore, tracking how much is spent, by whom, and on what is notoriously challenging. This review both outlines the challenges associated with estimating public health spending and explains the known sources of funding that are used to estimate and demonstrate the value of public health spending.

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BACKGROUND: In this article, we attempt to address a persistent question in the health policy literature: Does more public health spending buy better health? This is a difficult question to answer due to unobserved differences in public health across regions as well as the potential for an endogenous relationship between public health spending and public health outcomes. METHODS: We take advantage of the unique way in which public health is funded in Georgia to avoid this endogeneity problem, using a twelve year panel dataset of Georgia county public health expenditures and outcomes in order to address the "unobservables" problem. RESULTS: We find that increases in public health spending lead to increases in mortality by several different causes, including early deaths and heart disease deaths. We also find that increases in such spending leads to increases in morbidity from heart disease. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that more public health funding may not always lead to improvements in health outcomes at the county level.