Our World
in Data
It’s Giving Season. Help us do more with a donation.
Data

Share of out-of-pocket expenditure on healthcare

What you should know about this indicator

Share of out-of-pocket payments of total current health expenditures. Out-of-pocket payments are spending on health directly out-of-pocket by households.

Statistical concept and methodology: The health expenditure estimates have been prepared by the World Health Organization under the framework of the System of Health Accounts 2011 (SHA 2011). The Health SHA 2011 tracks all health spending in a given country over a defined period of time regardless of the entity or institution that financed and managed that spending. It generates consistent and comprehensive data on health spending in a country, which in turn can contribute to evidence-based policy-making.

Notes from original source: The World Health Organization (WHO) has revised health expenditure data using the new international classification for health expenditures in the revised System of Health Accounts (SHA 2011). WHO’s Global Health Expenditure Database in this new version is the reference source for health expenditure for international comparison imbedded in a standardized framework. The SHA 2011 clarifies the financing mechanisms and introduces new dimensions which improve the comparability of health expenditures in the perspective of universal health coverage.

Source
Multiple sources compiled by World Bank (2024) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
May 20, 2024
Next expected update
May 2025
Date range
2000–2021
Unit
% of current health expenditure

Related research and writing

A dark blue background with a lighter blue world map superimposed over it. Yellow text that says Global Health by Our World in Data

Global Health

Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max Roser
A dark blue background with a lighter blue world map superimposed over it. Yellow text that says Financing Healthcare by Our World in Data

Healthcare Spending

Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max Roser

Explore charts that include this data

Share of out-of-pocket expenditure vs. GDP per capita

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

The World Development Indicators (WDI) is the primary World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially-recognized international sources. It presents the most current and accurate global development data available, and includes national, regional and global estimates.

Retrieved on
May 20, 2024
Retrieved from
https://datacatalog.worldbank.org/search/dataset/0037712/World-Development-Indicators
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
World Bank's World Development Indicators (WDI).

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Share of out-of-pocket expenditure on healthcare”. Our World in Data (2024). Data adapted from World Health Organization. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-out-of-pocket-expenditure-on-healthcare [online resource]
How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

Multiple sources compiled by World Bank (2024) – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

Multiple sources compiled by World Bank (2024) – processed by Our World in Data. “Share of out-of-pocket expenditure on healthcare” [dataset]. World Health Organization, “World Development Indicators” [original data]. Retrieved November 27, 2024 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-out-of-pocket-expenditure-on-healthcare