Health System Tracker

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…

This web portal provided by McMaster Health Forum hosts a comprehensive repository on topics surrounding health system reform. This includes evidence surrounding developing cost-effective programs, services, and drugs, and making them accessible to the populations that need them the most. Types of resources include policy briefs, systematic reviews, descriptions, evaluations, and more. Resources are searchable by domain, region or country of focus, and document features, to efficiently provide resources to a wide range of stakeholders,…

This case describes China’s effort to eliminate iodine deficiency by introducing iodized salt to market. Technical and donor funded assistance programs have raised awareness, supported the manufacturing of iodized sale by manufacturers, monitored and improved the quality of salt and enacted legislation and regulations to force compliance by the salt industry. These efforts led to a reduced the incidence of goiter among children, from 20 to 9 percent in 1995. This case study is part…