The Impact of Public Healthcare Expenditure and Other Determinants on Life Expectancy in Nigeria

Abstract

This study's core objective is to empirically investigate the impact of public healthcare expenditure and other determinants on life expectancy in Nigeria for the period 1981 to 2018, with the aim of proffering policies to improve life expectancy. Grossman's health model was used to analyze life expectancy as a function of gross domestic product (GDP), government health expenditure, inflation, secondary school enrolment, food production, and urban population. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL-bounds) technique, Granger causality test based on Toda Yamamoto approach, and Augmented Dickey Fuller test, was utilized to analyze the data. The results show a long-run causal relationship between life expectancy and the variables: per capita income, government health expenditure, inflation rate, secondary school enrolment, and urbanization in Nigeria. Thus, highlighting the significant long-run impact of public healthcare expenditure on life expectancy at birth in Nigeria. Based on the study's findings, key recommendations for Nigeria to improve the life expectancy of its citizenry were; to increase its public healthcare expenditure and GDP per capita expenditure, address issues of inadequate and insecure food production, develop new regional cities to cut down rural-urban drift, reduce inflation and ensure price stability.