Official estimates of public health spending are significantly overinflated

In the months before the COVID-19 pandemic began, the U.S. federal government released its annual estimates for how much the nation spends on health. A small fraction of the $3.6 trillion dedicated to health spending—an estimated $93 billion—is allocated to governmental public health at the federal, state and local levels. However, recently published research in the American Journal of Public Health from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health (SPH) reveals that these federal estimates overestimate actual public health spending by as much as two-thirds.