Introduction to Health Economics - United States Agency for ...

LECTURE NOTES

For All Health Science Students

Introduction to Health

Economics

Gashaw Andargie

University of Gondar

In collaboration with the Ethiopia Public Health Training Initiative, The Carter Center, the

Ethiopia Ministry of Health, and the Ethiopia Ministry of Education

September 2008

Funded under USAID Cooperative Agreement No. 663-A-00-00-0358-00.

Produced in collaboration with the Ethiopia Public Health Training Initiative, The Carter

Center, the Ethiopia Ministry of Health, and the Ethiopia Ministry of Education.

Important Guidelines for Printing and Photocopying

Limited permission is granted free of charge to print or photocopy all pages of this

publication for educational, not-for-profit use by health care workers, students or faculty.

All copies must retain all author credits and copyright notices included in the original

document. Under no circumstances is it permissible to sell or distribute on a commercial

basis, or to claim authorship of, copies of material reproduced from this publication.

?2008 by Gashaw Andargie

All rights reserved. Except as expressly provided above, no part of this publication may

be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without written permission of the author or authors.

This material is intended for educational use only by practicing health care workers or

students and faculty in a health care field.

PREFACE

Health economics is concerned with the alternative uses of

resources in the health services sector and with the efficient

utilization of economic resources such as Human resource,

material and financial resources. Every health worker needs

to acquaint him/ her self with the basic concepts of economics

and its application to the health sector in order to manage

health institutions and health delivery system efficiently.

¡°Health economics¡± as a course is meant to give medical,

health officer and other paramedical students basic principles

regarding economics and its application to the health sector.

Therefore, this material should be regarded as an introduction

to health economics rather than to economics.

The lecture note on ¡°Health Economics¡± is prepared in line with

the set curriculum, which is currently in use in health

professionals training institutes.

The materials in this lecture note are complied from different

books that are published by different authors and also from

internet.

Most books in the field emphasize only on some detailed and

specific aspects of health economics.

The objective of

updating this lecture note is, therefore, to improve the basic

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concepts of economics and their application to the health

sector and not to exhaustively present all that is important

about the subject matter of health economics. Thus, the need

for supplementary reference books could be of paramount

importance.

Concepts and the analyses presented in this document will

help to serve as working material so that students and others

could understand and apply basic ideas of economics to the

health sector.

The compiling of this material was made possible through the

teaching and learning process of the course ¡°Health

Economics¡¯ at the University of Gondar. Updating of the

document should be understood as a process of making

amendments of lecture materials.

I do not claim that the

material is an original work, hence due gratitude is extended

to the previous authors of those lecture notes and books that

served as sources for this instruction material.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

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I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to the Carter

Center for supporting the preparation of this lecture note.

The preparation of these lecture notes is made possible by the

first lecture note made by Mr Gezachew Ashagrie.

I also extend many thanks to the local intra and inter

institutional reviewers Ato Esayas Haregot from Mekelle

University, Dr. Vilasini Devi from Jimma University and Ato

Mesfin Mengistu from Hawassa University.

In addition, I

would like to pass my deepest gratitude to national reviewers,

Dr Damen H/ Maraim and Dr Abdulhamid Bedri Kello, Health

Economists, from Addis Ababa University, Medical Faculty and

College of Development Studies.

I would also like to share my appreciation to Ato Aklilu

Mulugata, the staff of the Carter Center, for his devoted

support throughout the preparation of this lecture note.

Finally, I would like to express my hart felt thanks to all public

health Faculty Authorities for permission to work on this

lecture note besides the routine activities of the Faculty.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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