A Review of the European Structural and Investment Funds in Health

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate different aspects and give a synthesized review on the importance of the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIFs) in health, an area that is less studied in previous research about the investments of the EU funds in the EU. Based on theoretical review, the paper confirms that health can be connected with most of the investment priorities of the EU cohesion policy. Regarding the structure of the ESIFs in health, the results of the multivariate cluster analysis show that EU Member States which have higher regional inequalities in health, lower public health service capacities, lower government expenditure on health and lower self-reported health as good or very good direct a significant share of funds to finance health infrastructure and access to health. In the context of building resilient societies, in using different investment opportunities of the ESIFs for health, it is necessary to strengthen other fields related to health, to combine instruments of financing through an integrative approach and to monitor and evaluate the effects of investments continually.