When the components of health care spending are broken down, hospital spending accounts for the largest portion of the total. This DataWatch compares hospital spending in two U.S. states with spending in two Canadian provinces, to gain better understanding of the recurring differences in hospital spending reported by the two countries. To make the data comparable, the study combines different h...

BACKGROUND The National Health Policy 2000 - 2009 and Health sector strategic plans I & II emphasized that Primary Health Care (PHC) would be the main strategy for national development and would be operationalized through provision of the minimum health care package. Commitment was to spend an increasing proportion of the health budget for the provision of the basic minimum package of health se...

This article demonstrates the potential of the disaggregated expenditure approach in comparative welfare state analysis by applying it for comparing patterns of welfare spending across 28 European countries. An initial factor analysis shows that welfare states differ primarily along their emphasis either on cash transfers for the elderly or on social services and cash transfers for the working-...

BACKGROUND Numerous simultaneous complex humanitarian emergencies strain the ability of local governments and the international community to respond, underscoring the importance of cost-effective use of limited resources. At the end of 2011, 42.5 million people were forcibly displaced, including 10.4 million refugees under the mandate of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)...

This report presents the latest estimates of Hong Kong domestic health spending for financial years 1989/90 to 2008/09, cross-stratified and categorised by financing source, provider and function. Total expenditure on health (TEH) was HK$84,391 million in financial year 2008/09, which represents an increase of HK$5030 million or 6.3% over the preceding year. Amid the financial tsunami in late 2...

Recent calls for value in the US healthcare system have spurred an increase in comparative effectiveness research, which generates evidence on competing treatment options to inform healthcare stakeholders. As a large healthcare purchaser, the federal government has made several significant investments in comparative effectiveness research. Notably, in 2009 the American Recovery and Reinvestment...

Although spending rates on health care and social services vary substantially across the states, little is known about the possible association between variation in state-level health outcomes and the allocation of state spending between health care and social services. To estimate that association, we used state-level repeated measures multivariable modeling for the period 2000-09, with region...

BACKGROUND Limited evidence about mental health finances in low and middle-income countries is a key challenge to mental health care policy initiatives. This study aimed to map mental health finances in Ghana, Uganda, India (Kerala state), Sri Lanka and Lao PDR focusing on how much money is available for mental health, how it is spent, and how this impacts mental health services. METHODS A re...