Current health expenditure as a percentage of GDP, from the WHO Global Health Expenditure Database. The United States spends around 16 to 17% of GDP, the highest of any large economy, while many low-income countries spend under 5%; this is the budget envelope within which digital health is funded.
How much a country spends on health, relative to the size of its economy, sets the budget within which electronic records, telehealth infrastructure, and clinical AI must compete for funding. This indicator reports current health expenditure as a percentage of GDP, compiled by Our World in Data from the WHO Global Health Expenditure Database.
How to read it
The measure is a share of national output, not an absolute amount, so a high percentage in a small economy can still mean modest per-person spending. It captures both public and private current spending on health, but excludes capital investment.
What it shows
The United States is a consistent outlier at around 16 to 17% of GDP, well above other high-income countries, most of which cluster between roughly 9% and 13%. Many low-income countries spend under 5% of a much smaller GDP, which compounds the resource gap. A handful of small economies record higher shares than the United States, but these reflect very small national outputs or large donor-funded health sectors rather than comparable spending power. These differences help explain why the business case for digital health, and the appetite for capital-intensive systems, looks so different across settings.
Caveats
The WHO database harmonises national health accounts, but methods and reporting lags vary, and the most recent years are subject to revision. A share of GDP says nothing about how efficiently spending translates into care or outcomes.