US health care spending increases each year and accounts for more than 17% of the US economy. Despite the size and growth of this spending, little is known about how spending on each condition varies by age and across time. IHME’s Disease Expenditure project seeks to answer these fundamental questions of US health care spending in a manner relevant to policymakers, health system administrators, and patients.
Understanding health expenditure at the disease level allows us to identify disconnects between disease burden and spending, and thereby identify potential areas where little is being done to combat major portions of burden. Because we track these estimates over time, we also assess how these relationships change. Uncovering drivers of health spending enables stakeholders to identify areas for policy change or increased investment in technology, treatment, or care.
Linking resource consumption to health loss at the disease level adds prospective value for planning and budgeting purposes, and adds retrospective value for accountability and performance management. These estimates also lay the foundation for incremental cost-effectiveness analysis of health interventions. With this information in hand, specific actions can be identified to mitigate the drivers of increasing health expenditure around the world.
In sum, the DEX project is designed to accomplish the following:
- Categorize what health expenditure is being spent on
- Tie health expenditure to disease burden
- Explain what is causing increases in health expenditure
- Assess past increases in health expenditure as a basis for prediction