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Health Expenditure

 

Based on the latest estimates, the average OECD health expenditure to GDP ratio declined from a peak of 9.7% at the height of the pandemic in 2021 to 9.2% in 2022. The share of GDP going to health remains above the pre-pandemic level of 8.8% even if in 11 OECD countries the ratio in 2022 is expected to have fallen below 2019 pre-pandemic levels. Looking at country level data, the health expenditure to GDP ratio remained by far the highest in the USA at 16.6% in 2022, followed by Germany  at 12.7% and France at 12.1%, according to the database OECD Health Statistics 2023.

A System of Health Accounts (SHA, revised edition March 2017) provides a standard framework for producing a set of comprehensive, consistent and internationally comparable accounts to meet the needs of public and private sector health analysts and policy-makers.

Health expenditure

WHAT’S NEW - LATEST TRENDS IN OECD HEALTH SPENDING

An analysis of the trends in per capita health spending and GDP over the last 15 years shows two shocks: the economic and financial crisis in 2008 and the recent impact of COVID-19 in 2020.

While OECD economies sharply contracted in 2008 and 2009, health spending growth was maintained in the short term before hovering just above zero as a range of different policy measures to rein in public spending on health were put in place between 2010 and 2012. This was followed by a return to somewhat stronger growth, both in health spending and GDP up until the pandemic.

In 2020, widespread lockdowns and other public health measures severely restricting economic activity and consumer spending sent many OECD economies into freefall. There was a rebound in 2021 with per capita GDP increasing by 5.8% on average. At the same time, real per capita spending on health accelerated from just over 4% in 2020 to 8% in 2021 as countries allocated additional funding to tackle the pandemic.

With countries emerging from the acute stage of the pandemic, health spending per capita is likely to have fallen on average by close to 1.5% in real terms in 2022.

Access the dataset on Health Expenditure and Financing in OECD.Stat

KEY publication: A SYSTEM OF HEALTH ACCOUNTS

The OECD Manual A System of Health Accounts (SHA) provides a standard framework for producing a set of comprehensive, consistent and internationally comparable accounts to meet the needs of public and private-sector health analysts and policy-makers. The SHA manual establishes a conceptual basis of statistical reporting rules that are compatible with other economic and social statistics.

Note that the revised edition was released on March 16, 2017.

Related reading material:

PUBLICATIONS AND PROJECTS RELATED TO HEALTH EXPENDITURE 

Briefs

 

COntacts FOR HEALTH EXPENDITURE

For more information, please contact us at sha.contact@oecd.org.

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