Understanding the role of the health workforce in driving health spending: trends across OECD countries and implications for the US

Abstract

Given its high levels of health spending but lacking proportionately better health outcomes, the US has focused much policy attention on improving health spending efficiency and reducing health spending overall. One factor potentially related to health spending that would be both affected by decreases in spending and a potential driver of health spending per capita itself is the health workforce. Using regression and decomposition analyses, we estimated the magnitude and significance of the total health spending per capita and total health workforce density relationship across OECD countries and what share of the variance in health spending can be explained by variation in the health workforce. We used an expanded health workforce definition that included both front-line caregivers and background health care workers. Our findings suggest that there is a strong relationship between health spending and the health workforce and that further research is needed to pursue the potential for health spending changes to affect the health workforce.