Impact of a Physical Activities Program on Expenses with Hospitalization for Diabetes in the State of Pernambuco – Brazil

Abstract

Background: The Health Gym Program (HGP) is the main program to promote health and physical activity in the public health system in Brazil. This intervention uses financial resources from the federal government and municipalities to encourage the population of Brazilian municipalities to adopt more active and healthy lifestyles. Objective: To evaluate the impact of the Health Gym Program on hospital admissions for type II diabetes mellitus in the state of Pernambuco – Brazil. Method: This is an impact assessment of public policies that used a panel of data from all 185 municipalities in Pernambuco from 2007 to 2018. The 130 municipalities that adopted the HGP from 2011 were designated as treaties while the others 55 that did not implement the program made up the control group. The empirical strategy used an econometric modeling that uses the difference-in-differences estimator weighted by the propensity score. Results: Hospitalizations for diabetes represented, respectively, 1.47% and 1.00% of all hospitalizations performed in 2007 and 2018. The expenditure on these hospitalizations was US$ 899,687.34 in 2018 and corresponded to 0.59% of the cost of all hospitalizations. The municipalities that implemented the HGP spent an average of 19.74% less on hospitalizations for diabetes than the municipalities that did not, and this result was statistically significant at the 5% level. Conclusion: The Health Gym Program impacted in reducing the expenses with hospitalizations for diabetes when comparing the municipalities that implemented and those that did not implement this intervention.