Provincial health expenditure and cardiovascular disease mortality, a panel data study of Canadian provinces

Abstract

Objective: Health expenditures on cardiovascular disease (CVD) account for a large proportion of health care expenditures of all the diseases in Canada, and hence there is a need to examine the responsiveness of CVD outcomes to health expenditures. The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between health care expenditures and CVD mortality, as a health care outcome at the provincial level in Canada.

Methods: A 10-year (2000-2009) panel dataset was constructed from multiple data sources for the purposes of this study. The dataset composed of age standardized CVD mortalities, health care expenditures, and covariates for the 10 Canadian provinces. We employed a fixed effects model based on the results of the Hausman test, with CVD mortalities as the dependent variable and health care expenditure and other covariates, as explanatory variables.

Results: Health care expenditures were significantly (0.05) and negatively associated with CVD mortality, with a 1% increase in health care expenditures associated with a decrease of 6.31 per 1 000 000 people in CVD mortality.

Conclusion: In the Canadian context, increases in spending on health care were associated with improvements in CVD outcomes for the time period under investigation.

Keywords: Canada; cardiovascular mortality; provincial health expenditure.