Abstract: An essential component of any economy's growth is the health sector, which receives substantial funding, mostly from the government. The research community is now interested in understanding the determinants of substantial financial support to health , given the shrinking budgetary space in most African countries. The study investigates how economic growth, government effectiveness, government revenue, technology, and labour participation rate affect public health spending in the SADC region. The autoregressive distributed lag model was adopted as the methodology for the study. The results show that public health spending is influenced positively by economic growth. Technology, total government spending, and government effectiveness negatively affect public health spending. The policy recommendation drawing from the study is that governments should institute pro-growth policies to improve health spending and spur better health outcomes.

Keywords: Health, Public Spending, ARDL, Technology, Fiscal Space, SADC

Pages: 2853-2861