Spending on health and HIV/AIDS: domestic health spending and development assistance in 188 countries, 1995\u20132015

Background: Comparable estimates of health spending are crucial for the assessment of health systems and to optimally deploy health resources. The methods used to track health spending continue to evolve, but little is known about the distribution of spending across diseases. We developed improved estimates of health spending by source, including development assistance for health, and, for the first time, estimated HIV/AIDS spending on prevention and treatment and by source of funding, for 188 countries. Methods: We collected published data on domestic health spending, from 1995 to 2015, from a diverse set of international agencies. We tracked development assistance for health from 1990 to 2017. We also extracted 5385 datapoints about HIV/AIDS spending, between 2000 and 2015, from online databases, country reports, and proposals submitted to multilateral organisations. We used spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression to generate complete and comparable estimates for health and HIV/AIDS spending. We report most estimates in 2017 purchasing-power parity-adjusted dollars and adjust all estimates for the effect of inflation. Findings: Between 1995 and 2015, global health spending per capita grew at an annualised rate of 3\ub71% (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 3\ub71 to 3\ub72), with growth being largest in upper-middle-income countries (5\ub74% per capita [UI 5\ub73\u20135\ub75]) and lower-middle-income countries (4\ub72% per capita [4\ub72\u20134\ub73]). In 2015, 9\ub77 trillion (9\ub77 trillion to 9\ub78 trillion) was spent on health worldwide. High-income countries spent 6\ub75 trillion (6\ub74 trillion to 6\ub75 trillion) or 66\ub73% (66\ub70 to 66\ub75) of the total in 2015, whereas low-income countries spent 70\ub73 billion (69\ub73 billion to 71\ub73 billion) or 0\ub77% (0\ub77 to 0\ub77). Between 1990 and 2017, development assistance for health increased by 394\ub77% (29\ub79 billion), with an estimated 37\ub74 billion of development assistance being disbursed for health in 2017, of which 9\ub71 billion (24\ub72%) targeted HIV/AIDS. Between 2000 and 2015, 562\ub76 billion (531\ub71 billion to 621\ub79 billion) was spent on HIV/AIDS worldwide. Governments financed 57\ub76% (52\ub70 to 60\ub78) of that total. Global HIV/AIDS spending peaked at 49\ub77 billion (46\ub72\u201354\ub77) in 2013, decreasing to 48\ub79 billion (45\ub72 billion to 54\ub72 billion) in 2015. That year, low-income and lower-middle-income countries represented 74\ub76% of all HIV/AIDS disability-adjusted life-years, but just 36\ub76% (34\ub74 to 38\ub77) of total HIV/AIDS spending. In 2015, 9\ub73 billion (8\ub75 billion to 10\ub74 billion) or 19\ub70% (17\ub76 to 20\ub76) of HIV/AIDS financing was spent on prevention, and 27\ub73 billion (24\ub75 billion to 31\ub71 billion) or 55\ub78% (53\ub73 to 57\ub79) was dedicated to care and treatment. Interpretation: From 1995 to 2015, total health spending increased worldwide, with the fastest per capita growth in middle-income countries. While these national disparities are relatively well known, low-income countries spent less per person on health and HIV/AIDS than did high-income and middle-income countries. Furthermore, declines in development assistance for health continue, including for HIV/AIDS. Additional cuts to development assistance could hasten this decline, and risk slowing progress towards global and national goals. Funding: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation