Overview

Health sector priority-setting (HSPS) is the process of determining how to allocate limited healthcare resources to meet the needs of a population. It is a complex and challenging process faced by decision makers at all levels of the health system. The challenges of HSPS are magnified when countries are faced with weak data systems, low quality data and inadequate analytical capacity.

Early conceptualizations of HSPS primarily involved choosing from a long list of alternative health interventions to maximize health outcomes and achieve health system goals. However, contemporary efforts recognize HSPS’s broader role in a complex, dynamic system. Priority-setting in the health sector includes careful analysis and consideration of budgeting processes, intervention selection, and the management of human resources, among many other factors.

Despite recognition of the importance of priority-setting processes in healthcare, HSPS in most settings continues to be ad hoc rather than systematic. This has led to global calls for strategies to improve priority-setting practices and the development of frameworks or approaches for setting explicit priorities with explicitly defined criteria to prioritize spending on publicly funded healthcare.

To investigate facilitators of success in HSPS, understand its challenges and propose potential solutions, AHADI assembled available evidence on HSPS processes in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) and on the use of data and analytics in these processes. Learnings are drawn from the literature and a case study of Ghana, conducted via in-country stakeholder consultations in collaboration with the University of Health and Allied Sciences in Ghana.

Partners

• Ghana Ministry of Health
• Ghana National Health Service
• University of Health and Allied Sciences, Ghana

Outputs

A review of health priority-setting in low- and middle-income countries

January 2025

Funding

This work is funded by the Gates Foundation.