The Global Health Expenditure Database (GHED) provides internationally comparable data on health spending for close to 190 countries from 2000 to 2017. The database is open access and supports the goal of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) by helping monitor the availability of resources for health and the extent to which they are used efficiently and equitably. This, in turn, helps ensure health services are available and affordable when people need them. In particular, the data published here contributes to a better understanding of:
- How much do different countries spend on health?
- How much do different actors such as government, insurance companies, households and donors contribute?
- What are the financing arrangements to pay for health?
- How much money is spent on primary health care (PHC)?
- How much money is spent on different diseases and programmes such as immunization?
- How much money is spent on the less than 5-year old population?
WHO works collaboratively with Member States and updates the database annually using available data such as health accounts studies and government expenditure records. Where necessary, modifications and estimates are made to ensure the comprehensiveness and consistency of the data across countries and years. GHED is the source of the health expenditure data republished by the World Bank and the WHO Global Health Observatory.
To mark Universal Health Coverage Day in December 2019, WHO has released new data and published the report “Global Spending on Health: A World in Transition”. It examines how countries progress towards financing UHC in a world in transition. It provides an update on the upwards trends in global health spending, confirming the increasing convergence of middle-income countries towards high income countries’ health spending profiles, with increased domestic public spending and the decreasing role of overseas development assistance. The report highlights how most countries who experienced high rates of economic growth also undertook a health financing transition towards increasing the share of health spending funded publicly, while transitioning out from aid is slower. The health financing transition is also accompanied by a transition of institutions with increased pooling and increased subsidization of social insurance mechanisms by public financing. Finally, while there is more and more evidence on the levels of spending on PHC, more analysis is needed to understand how countries ensure adequate financing of the Primary Health Care priority.
Alongside this new report and data, we are also pleased to announce the update of interactive visualisations of health spending for each country. In this section, you will be able to view, download and print individual country profiles.
In the documentation center, you will find the December 2019 country release note, as well as complementary technical notes, methodology guidelines, global, regional and country reports on health expenditure, general information and metadata documents.
>> Explore the Data
