Health financing

Our health financing work examines health spending from governments, individuals, private insurance, and development assistance for health (DAH), answering critical questions about where resources for health are coming from and where they are going to inform policymakers. 

79% of global spending on health care is in high-income countries, despite containing only 16% of the world’s population.
60% of the total global health spending came from governments, but this amount varies dramatically by income group and across countries.
$37.8 billion was provided as development assistance for COVID in low- and middle-income countries in 2020 and 2021.
$1,827 is the expected global health spending per person by 2050. This is 43.4% larger than in 2023.

Interactive data visuals

Interactive Data Visual

Financing Global Health

Explore patterns of global health financing flows from 1990 to 2050.

Datasets in our catalog

Visit the Global Health Data Exchange (GHDx) to download our estimates of health spending for most of the world’s countries over the last two decades, and forecasts of future spending through 2050.

Scientific Publication

Global investments in pandemic preparedness and COVID-19

Cover of The Lancet journal

Publications

Scientific Publication

Global investments in pandemic preparedness and COVID-19: tracking development assistance and domestic spending on health between 1990 and 2026

We aimed to provide a comparative assessment of global health spending at the onset of the pandemic; characterise the amount of development assistance for pandemic preparedness and response disbursed in the first 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic; and examine expectations for future health spending and put into context the expected need for investment in pandemic preparedness.

Infographics

Infographic

FGH 2021: Tuberculosis

Disease spending profile for tuberculosis, updated for the latest edition of the Financing Global Health report.

Infographic

FGH 2021: Other infectious diseases

Disease spending profile for other infectious diseases, updated for the latest edition of the Financing Global Health report.

Infographic

FGH 2021: Non-communicable diseases

Disease spending profile for non-communicable diseases, updated for the latest edition of the Financing Global Health report.

Videos

Video

United States Health Spending by Race & Ethnicity (2021)

Dr. Joseph L. Dieleman describes main points and health policy recommendations while reviewing key research figure from the study “US Health Care Spending by Race and Ethnicity, 2002-2016," published August 17, 2021 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Video

Tutorials: Financing Global Health

Learn how to explore trends in health spending worldwide with our 2019 Financing Global Health visualization tool.

Related

Health topic

COVID-19