The current health pandemic that has plagued the global of which the global south-Nigeria is not insulated from is the premise for this empirical investigation. The present study relies on recent annual time-series data to conceptualize the hypothesized claim via Pesaran's Autoregressive distributed lag techniques. Empirical findings from the bounds test traces the long-run relationship between public health expenditure and economic growth over the study span. However, unlike previous studies, we introduce life expectancy and death rates in the model framework. Although health expenditure is not significant, empirical results show that a 1% increase in life expectancy and death rate increases and decreases economic growth by 3.85 and 1.84%, respectively. This suggests the need for Health Policymakers in Nigeria to implement active strategies that reduce the death rate, which is a blueprint for active engagement in the face of a global pandemic such as COVID-19. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd