About NHA

National Health Accounts are an internationally accepted tool for collecting, cataloguing and estimating financial flows through health system regardless of the origin or destination of funds. It is designed particularly as a policy tool for improving the capacity of health sector planners to manage their health systems. NHA allows policy makers to understand how resources are used in the health system and to evaluate the impact of health reform on different stakeholders. NHA also allows for comparisons of health expenditures over different periods of time as well as cross-country. The NHA methodology organizes, tabulates, and presents health spending information in a standard format and set of tables that one can understand and interpret even without a background in economics or statistics by answering a few questions, (i) Who pays?; (ii) How much is paid for health care? (Resource mobilization, fairness of financial burden,…); (iii) Who are the important actors in health financing and health care delivery?; (iv) And how significant are they in total expenditure? (resource management: collection, risk pooling and purchasing,…; (v) How are health funds distributed across different services, interventions, and activities that the health system produces? (what is produced, who provides what services,…); (vi) Who benefits from health expenditure? (income, age, and gender groups, and regions).

Resources/Links

Guides/Manuals:

• A System of Health Accounts Published by OECD
• Guide to producing National Health Accounts (with special focus on Middle and low income Countries) Published by WHO
• Harvard Methodology
• National Accounts: A Practical Introduction (2003) Published by United Nations

Country Reports:

• All Countries
• National Health Accounts - Bangladesh (1999-2001)
• National Health Accounts – India (2001-2002)
• National Health Accounts – Iran
• National Health Accounts – Srilanka (2000-2002)