| Very little is known about the relationships, types, and amount of finances that fund the public health system in America. The lack of comprehensive public health financial databases severely hinders the performance of routine research and analysis. This study was undertaken in part to demonstrate the value of such research. It investigated for correlations between funding patterns and local public health system performance scores in jurisdictions of a mid-west state. The most significant observations was the positive relationship between higher local taxes per capita and higher performance scores. However, there was a lack of comparable correlations between higher performance and total revenues. Also, higher performing jurisdictions had larger populations, higher local tax rates, and higher mortality rates. Many more questions emerged from the study than were answered. Areas for further analysis include research on the impact of flexible compared to categorical funding sources on performance and determining the costs to maintain acceptable performance standards. |
