[01] Rashidul Alam Mahumud, Health Economics and Financing Research Group, Centre for Equity and Health System, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), Dhaka, Bangladesh. [02] Marufa Sultana, Health Economics and Financing Research Group, Centre for Equity and Health System, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), Dhaka, Bangladesh. [03] Abdur Razzaque Sarker, Health Economics and Financing Research Group, Centre for Equity and Health System, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Background: The rapid growth of healthcare expenditure has become a great concern for both for private and public viewpoint. Healthcare expenditures comprise a great share of government budget and expenditures and it is the key issue that dominates health policy and its indicators. Objective: The objective of the study is to investigate the trend of determinants of healthcare expenditure after controlling for country-specific economic conditions and comparing between public and private health care spending across the country. Methods: The study extracted cross-sectional and annual time series data from the World Development Indicators over 1995 to 2010 for Bangladesh context. Simple regression analysis and t-test were performed to identify the trend of healthcare expenditure and compared between the private and public healthcare expenditure. Correlation matrix was used to examine the interrelationship among the study variables. Results: Private healthcare expenditure in Bangladesh has been increasing although the public healthcare expenditure has been declining over the period. In correlation matrix results showed that private healthcare expenditure as a share of GDP and GDP growth had a strong positive relationship with the total healthcare expenditure and healthcare expenditure per capita. The study also investigated that there was a significant reverse relationship between public and private sector healthcare expenditure. Conclusion: The study emerge to establish effective public-private partnerships in developing the health sector which can help the policymakers to make long term decisions to improve population health status.

Health Care Expenditure, GDP, Private and Public Sector and Trend Analysis

[01] S.Roy. Determinants of healthcare expenditure on human capital and economic growth in Bangladesh: a longitudinal data analysis from 1995-2010. Asian J Pharmaceut Res Health Care 2014; 6: 6–10. [02] A. Samadi & R. Homaie. Determinants of Healthcare Expenditure in Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) Countries: Evidence from Panel Cointegration Tests. International Journal of Health Policy and Management 2013;1: 63–68. [03] OECD. OECD ilibrary, 2014. [04] P. Poullier, K. Kawabata, & D. Savedoff. National health accounts: concepts, data source and methodology. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization 2001. [05] J. Novignon, S. Olakojo, & J Nonvignon. The effects of public and private health care expenditure on health status in sub-Saharan Africa: new evidence from panel data analysis. Health Economics Review 2012; 2: 22. [06] J.C.Anyanwu, & A. Erhijakpor. Health Expenditures and Health Outcomes in Africa (Vol. 91) Tunisia, 2007. [07] R.A. Mahumud, L.B. Rawal, G.Hossain, R.Hossain, N. Islam. Impact of Life Expectancy on Economics Growth and Health Care Expenditures: A Case of Bangladesh Universal Journal of Public Health 2013; 1:180-186. [08] J.A.M. Khan & R. A. Mahumud. Is healthcare a ‘Necessity’ or ‘Luxury’? an empirical evidence from public and private sector analyses of South-East Asian countries? Health Economics Review 2015; 5:1-9. [09] J. Hartwig. What drives health care expenditure?-Baumol’s model of “unbalanced growth” revisited. Journal of Health Economics 2008; 27: 603–623. [10] WB. The World development indicators-2012. World Bank, 2012. [11] M.C.Berger, & J.Messer. Public financing of health expenditures, insurance, and health outcomes. Applied Economics 2002; 34: 2105-2113. [12] A.R.Sarker, R.A.Mahumud, M.Sultana, S. Ahmed, W.Ahmed & J. A.M. Khan. The impact of age and sex on healthcare expenditure of households in Bangladesh. Springer Plus 2014; 3: 1-5. [13] P.Saksena, & A.Holly. The Determinants of Health Expenditure : A Country-Level Panel Data Analysis. Geneva, Switzerland, 2011. [14] E.Baldacci, M.Guin-Siu, & L. De Mello. More on the effectiveness of public spending on health care and education: A covariance structure model. Journal of International Development, 2003; 15: 709–725.