Description

In this article, the authors estimated the impact of local public hospital spending and nonhospital health spending on all-cause mortality in the county using county-level public finance data for the years 1972-2012. Overall, a 10% increase in nonhospital health spending was associated with a 0.006% decrease in all-cause mortality one year after the initial spending; this effect was larger and significant in counties with greater proportions of racial/ethnic minorities. These indicate that county nonhospital health spending has health benefits that can help reduce costs and improve health outcomes in localities across the nation, though greater focus on population-oriented services may be warranted.