Resource Type: Brief
Authors: Bhavesh Jain, Heather Cogswell and Tesfaye D. Ashagari
Published: June 30, 2014

Resource Description:

Health systems worldwide are expanding their capacity to improve people’s welfare. Governments and their development partners in low- and middle-income countries are depending on data to inform health financing decisions, monitor health sector performance, and exercise stewardship. Recognition of the value of health resource data has built momentum for health resource tracking – measuring health spending and tracking the flow of financial resources among health sector actors. One powerful resource tracking mechanism that countries are using is National Health Accounts (NHA). The NHA methodology can be applied to both national- and state-level spending. For clarity, this brief will refer to national-level health accounts as “NHA” and state-level health accounts as “SLHA.”

Recognizing its value, India has conducted multiple rounds of health accounts at the national and state level. The purpose of this brief is to describe the findings and lessons learned from these exercises.