Health professionals would prioritize spending on the young over the old

In prioritizing health care spending, health professionals rank childhood immunization highest and cancer treatment for smokers lowest, according to a new international survey published in PLoS Medicine.

The survey found that health professionals generally prioritize spending on the young over the old and on preventive care over curative care. Yet this preference is at odds with the actual spending priorities in most countries throughout the world—most governments spend more on curative than on preventive health care services.

Glenn Salkeld (University of Sydney, Australia) and colleagues surveyed 253 health professionals from six countries, asking them to rank ten health interventions in order of priority for spending from most important (rank 1) to least important (rank 10).

The median rankings of health-care spending priorities across all countries, in order of importance, were:

1. Childhood immunization

2. Anti-smoking education for children

3. General practitioner care for everyday illness

4. Screening for breast cancer

5. Intensive care for neonates

6. Support for carers of the elderly

7. Treatment for people with schizophrenia

8. Hip replacement

9. Heart transplant

10. Cancer treatment for smokers

The values expressed by the health professionals in this study, say Salkeld and colleagues, transcended national and sectoral boundaries.

"Across the world many countries are struggling with the health and financial implications of a rapid rise in non-communicable disease,” they say. “If health care professionals and policy makers believe that prevention and targeting the young is an important principle for health spending priorities, then health care funders should examine the cost effectiveness evidence for intervening early in life."

Everything published by PLoS Medicine (www.plosmedicine.org) is Open Access: freely available for anyone to read, download, redistribute and otherwise use, as long as the authorship is properly attributed.

Citation: Salkeld G, Henry D, Hill S, Lang D, Freemantle N, et al. (2007) What drives healthcare spending priorities? An international survey of health-care professionals. PLoS Med 4(2): e94.

PLEASE ADD THE LINK TO THE PUBLISHED ARTICLE IN ONLINE VERSIONS OF YOUR REPORT: http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.00400094
PRESS-ONLY PREVIEW OF THE ARTICLE: http://www.plos.org/press/plme-04-02-salkeld.pdf

CONTACT:

Glenn Salkeld
University of Sydney
School of Public Health
Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
+ 61 2 9351 5126
+ 61 2 9351 7420 (fax)
glenns@health.usyd.edu.au

About PLoS Medicine

PLoS Medicine is an open access, freely available international medical journal. It publishes original research that enhances our understanding of human health and disease, together with commentary and analysis of important global health issues. For more information, visit http://www.plosmedicine.org

The Public Library of Science (PLoS) is a non-profit organization of scientists and physicians committed to making the world's scientific and medical literature a freely available public resource. For more information, visit http://www.plos.org