Global Health Financing

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

The pandemic has highlighted the fact that health and wealth are inextricably linked in common discourse. Further, the way health systems and larger political systems are structured directly impact the ability to prepare for, manage, and respond to, large scale public health threats. The failure to act has implications not just on health, but on the daily lives and the economy of a system. Yet, preparation, management, and response – both at the national and international level – bears political, financial, and arguably, individual, costs. The pandemic has painfully highlighted this systemic under-resourcing of health systems, as well as the reality that common multilateral financial responses are incommensurate with the need and health burden at hand. This then leads to critical questions in international and national health system development: how are health systems financed? Who pays and how much? What are financial implications when the dimensions of equity, poverty, solidarity, and cost effectiveness are taken into account?