Análise da eficiência relativa dos gastos públicos com saúde nos estados brasileiros no período de 2018 a 2021

Abstract

Starting from the New Public Management (NPM), performance measures, including efficiency, stood out as forms of evaluation of public administration. The COVID-19 pandemic, which arrived in Brazil in 2020, increased the relevance of spending on health actions and services and required a more efficient and judicious allocation of resources. The main purpose of this study is to identify which Brazilian states showed the best relative efficiency in public health spending from 2018 to 2021. The methodology applied was Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) with variable returns to scale (BCC/VSR model) product-oriented. The best efficiency indices were presented by the states of Bahia, Ceará, Pernambuco, Minas Gerais, and Rio de Janeiro, with maximum efficiency throughout the period, and Maranhão, and Paraná, with maximum efficiency in three of the four years analyzed. These states and Pará were indicated as benchmarks for inefficient units. The worst efficiency rates were concentrated in the North and Central-West regions. Overall, 64% of the indices demonstrated moderate to low or very low efficiency, which shows that there is a lot of room for improvement.