Per capita public health spending has dropped 9.3% since 2008, reflecting a $40.2 billion loss to disease prevention and related programs from 2009 through 2014, according to an article published in the American Journal of Public Health.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) stresses the importance of disease prevention, for example, by mandating insurance coverage of clinical preventive services such as mammograms.

But the current research indicates that funding for public health programs to prevent disease has actually been declining in recent years.