OBJECTIVE To analyze the evolution of estimates of federal spending in Brazil's Mental Health Program since the promulgation of the national mental health law. METHODS The total federal outlay of the Mental Health Program and its components of hospital and extra-hospital expenses were estimated based on 21 expenses categories from 2001 to 2009. The expenses amount was updated to values in rea...

Editor — We wish to comment on the Chilean situation, as discussed in the paper “Decentralization and equity of resource allocation in Colombia and Chile” by Bossert et al (1). The figures presented in Table 2 of their paper (1) show a large difference in local municipal-level expenditure on primary health care (per capita). We found a similar pattern in our more recent review (2). Our study fo...

Background As middle-income countries become more affluent, economically sophisticated and productive, health expenditure patterns are likely to change. Other socio-demographic and political changes that accompany rapid economic growth are also likely to influence health spending and financial protection.   Methods This study investigates the relationship between growth on per-capita healthcare...

Many researchers indicate that health expenditures positively contribute to economic growth and prosperity, emphasizing when healthy individuals are more efficient, they make a huge contribution human capital, which in turn improves productivity. There is also relationship between expenditures, meaning expenditure function of income higher leads an increase spending on health. In this study, we...

Our analysis of 19 OECD countries over the period 1972-2006 provides evidence of convergence in per capita health care expenditures for 17 countries, while the US and (to a lesser degree) Norway follow a different path. A simple decomposition of per capita health expenditures reveals that the divergence of the US comes from the divergence of the ‘health care expenditure over GDP’ component, whi...

BACKGROUND Managing expenditures on pharmaceuticals is important for health systems to sustain universal access to necessary medicines. We sought to estimate the size and sources of differences in expenditures on primary care medications among high-income countries with universal health care systems. METHODS We compared data on the 2015 volume and cost per day of primary care prescription dru...

This study examines the extent to which increased public mental health expenditures lead to a reduction in jail populations and computes the associated intersystem return on investment (ROI). We analyze unique panel data on 44 U.S. states and D.C. for years 2001-2009. To isolate the intersystem spillover effect, we exploit variations across states and over time within states in per capita publi...

OBJECTIVE To identify key social determinants of tuberculosis (TB) incidence among countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), a geographic area regarded as one of the most socioeconomically unequal in the world METHODS An ecological study was conducted at the country level. Data were obtained from several institutional-based sources. Random-effects regression modeling was used to exp...

Background and Aim: The health financing system is "the process of collecting, pooling and managing financial resources and purchasing healthcare services”. Iran's health financing system is facing challenges. The aim of this study was to evaluate the Iranian health financing system.         Materials and Methods: This descriptive study retrospectively evaluated the health financing system of...