Health Expenses and their Relationship with Municipal Population Size: A Study in Pernambuco

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the application of public resources for health services and its relationship to population size of the municipalities of the state of Pernambuco through a survey that is quantitative, descriptive, analytical and retrospective and uses secondary data pertaining to the historical series from 2012 to 2017. The data were collected from the Information System on Public Budgets for Health and by the use of the Cidades@ tool of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. The statistical analysis was carried out using the Stata software package. On examining average spending, it was observed that the most significant breaches of the mandatory minimum percentage of 15% occurred from year 2012 through 2016. As regards the historical series of the average application of financial resources, it was found that in 2016 there was a decline in all municipalities. It was observed that the small municipalities of the mesoregions of Zona da Mata, Agreste and Sertão presented the highest average percentages, which demonstrates the dependence between these and other entities in the state, thereby highlighting the need to improve the management of financial resources.