GGHE as % of THE

Percent

This is a core indicator of health financing systems. This indicator contributes to understanding the relative weight of public entities in total expenditure on health.   It includes not just the resources channeled through government budgets to providers of health services but also the expenditure on health by parastatals, extrabudgetary entities and notably the compulsory health insurance payments. It refers to resources collected and pooled by the above public agencies regardless of the source, so includes any donor (external) funding passing through these agencies.

Level of general government expenditure on health (GGHE) expressed as a percentage of total expenditure on health (THE)

National health accounts (NHA) indicators are based on expenditure information collected within an internationally recognized framework. In this indicator resources are tracked for all public entities acting as financing agents: managing health funds and purchasing or paying for health goods and services.   The NHA strategy is to track records of transactions, without double counting and in order to reaching a comprehensive coverage. Specially, it aims to be consolidated not to double count government transfers to social security and extrabudgetary funds.   Monetary and non monetary transactions are accounted for at purchasers' value.   Guides to producing national health accounts exist. (OECD, 2000; WHO-World Bank-USAID, 2003).

Input

In countries where the fiscal year begins in July, expenditure data have been allocated to the later calendar year (for example, 2008 data will cover the fiscal year 200708), unless otherwise stated for the country. These data are generated from sources that WHO has been collecting for over ten years. The most comprehensive and consistent data on health financing is generated from national health accounts. Not all countries have or update national health accounts and in these instances, data is obtained through technical contacts in-country or from publicly-available documents and reports and harmonized to the NHA framework. Missing values are estimated using various accounting techniques depending on the data available for each country. The principal international references used are the EUROSTAT database, International Monetary Fund (IMF), government financial statistics and international financial statistics; OECD health data; and the United Nations national accounts statistics. National sources include National health accounts (NHA) reports, national accounts (NA) reports, general government (GG) accounts, public expenditure reviews (PER), government expenditure by purpose reports (COFOG), institutional reports of public entities involved in health care provision or financing, notably social security and other health insurance compulsory agencies and Ministry of Finance (MoF) reports. Other possible data sources include executed budget and financing reports of social security and health insurance compulsory schemes, central bank reports, academic studies, reports and data provided by central statistical offices and ministries, statistical yearbooks and other periodicals, and on official web sites. WHO sends estimates to the respective Ministries of Health every year for validation.  

Sum of general government expenditure on health for all countries divided by sum of total health expenditure for all countries by relevant group. WHO region, income-group and global expenditure estimates are calculated using absolute amounts in national currency units converted to Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) equivalents unless otherwise noted. Regions are based on WHO regions, income groups on the World Bank classification and the global aggregate based on all WHO Member States.

N/A

Annual

Annual

When the number is smaller than 0.05% the percentage may appear as zero.  This indicator includes all compulsory pooled resources for health.