Healthcare spending

Abstract

Healthcare spending as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) has been increasing steadily but slowly over the last couple of decades. High-income countries spend – and have been spending – a much larger share of their income on healthcare than low-income countries. In contrast to high-income countries, in low and middle-income countries the public share of healthcare funding is much lower. Flows of development assistance for health finance more than 25% of total expenditure on healthcare in Sub-Saharan Africa. Healthcare financing in developing countries has been largely shaped by the flow of resources channeled through development assistance. The relationship between healthcare expenditure and life expectancy suggests that there are many other factors affecting life expectancy, that are not determined by healthcare spending. – AI-generated abstract.