Relationship between provincial health spending and cervical cancer early diagnosis in Canada

The concern with healthcare expenditures growth in Canada and the rest of developed world has created an increasing need for research evidence to guide resource allocation decisions in the health sector. This paper examines one aspect of the effectiveness of primary health care spending at the provincial level in Canada and provides evidence that investing in primary health care does matter in improving the effectiveness of cervical cancer screening services. A province-level panel dataset 1992-2009 was constructed for the purpose of this study. Using random-effects regression models, we found that health spending per capita was associated with a significant increase in early diagnosis of cervical cancer at the province level controlling for important factors such as income, education, lifestyle factors and prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases. This study indicates that provinces that spent more on health care performed better after controlling for potential confounders.