Is an ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure? Estimates of the impact of English public health grant on mortality and morbidity

Is an ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure? Estimates of the impact of English public health grant on mortality and morbidity Most previous attempts to estimate the marginal productivity of English health care expenditure have employed instruments that rely on statistical tests alone for their justification. A new approach to instrumentation has proposed the use of ‘funding rule’ variables as instruments, which can be justified on theoretical grounds. This paper exploits the availability of a funding formula for local authority (LA) public health expenditure in England to investigate the relationship between such expenditure and mortality. King's Fund Management and Policy Alert