The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted that access to timely health spending data is crucial for informed policy-making. This Health Working Paper summarises and compares the methodologies applied in around half of OECD countries to estimate public and private health spending for the most recent...

Building on previous OECD Health Working Papers on the economics of patient safety, this paper firstly provides an update on the health burden, and financial and economic cost of unsafe care. It then summarises the evidence on the cost-effectiveness and return on investment of various programmes...

Health spending slowed markedly or fell in many OECD countries recently after years of continuous growth, according to OECD Health Data 2012. As a result of the global economic crisis which began in 2008, a zero rate of growth in health expenditure was recorded on average in 2010, and...

The global economic crisis which began in 2008 has had a dramatic effect on health spending across OECD countries. Estimates of expenditure on health released back in 2012 showed that, for the first time, health spending had slowed markedly or fallen across many OECD countries after years of...

Alcohol policies have significant potential to curb alcohol-related harms, improve health, increase productivity, reduce crime and violence, and cut government expenditure. The WHO Global Strategy to reduce the harmful use of alcohol provides a menu of policy options based on international...

This paper sets out the OECD’s assessment of the provision of community-based mental health care in Lithuania. It provides an overview of the burden of mental ill health in Lithuania, highlights strengths and challenges of the mental health care system and care delivery, reports on the quality...

Overweight and obesity rates have been increasing relentlessly over recent decades in all industrialised countries, as well as in many lower income countries. OECD analyses of trends over time support the grim picture drawn in the international literature and so do projections of overweight and...

This paper provides an economic perspective on the prevention of chronic diseases, focusing in particular on diseases linked to lifestyle choices. The proposed economic framework is centred on the hypothesis that the prevention of chronic diseases may provide the means for increasing social...

Concerns about health expenditure growth and its long-term sustainability have stimulated the development of health expenditure forecasting models in many OECD countries. This comparative analysis reviewed 25 models that were developed by, or used for, policy analysis by OECD member countries...

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to make health care more effective, efficient and equitable. AI applications are on the rise, from clinical decision-making and public health, to biomedical research and drug development, to health system administration and service redesign. The...