GBD 2017: Past, Present, and Future of Global Health Financing
2019
This article published by The Lancet summarizes the past, present, and predicted future of global health spending. Health spending per capita has overall increased since 1995, reaching $8 trillion in 2016, accounting for 8.6% of the global economy. There exists a large disparity in per capita spending across the globe; markedly, on average in 2016, high-income countries spent $5252 per capita, upper-middle-income countries spent $491 per capita, lower-middle-income countries spent $81 per capita, and low-income countries spent $40. Increases in health spending per capita are predicted to persist into the future, even though the composition of health spending by financing source—government, out-of-pocket, prepaid private, and development assistance for health—is expected to evolve. Increasing health financing in quantity will not be sufficient; countries will need to focus on improvements in equity and efficiency in order to achieve universal health coverage—part of Sustainable Development Goal 3—and overall improve health outcomes globally.
Led by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, GBD is a global effort with researchers from over 150 countries and territories. IHME and other partnering organizations have developed numerous resources to disseminate and visualize the findings of the GBD studies, data visualizations and interactives, country profiles, policy reports, research articles, infographics, and the GBD Results Tool, which allows users to search GBD data.
GBD 2017: Past, Present, and Future of Global Health Financing
Source:
Global Burden of Disease Health Financing Collaborator Network. Past, Present, and Future of Global Health Financing: A Review of Development Assistance, Government, Out-of-Pocket, and Other Private Spending on Health for 195 Countries, 1995–2050. The Lancet 2019; 393(10187): 2233-2260. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(19)30841-4.