Sixth Global National Health Accounts Symposium

Advancing methods, Serving Policy

The Sixth Global NHA symposium will be hosted in Beijing, China, in conjunction with the iHEA Conference in Beijing in 2009.

The Sixth Global NHA symposium is a two-day workshop, hosted by the China Health Economics Institute (CHEI), with the sponsorship of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The program will include training and information sessions regarding the methods and latest developments in NHA, as well as its applications to policy and decision-making. A major focus of the Beijing event will be an open consultation, led by WHO, OECD and Eurostat, with symposium participants on the latest proposals for revision of the System of Health Accounts (SHA 2) standard for NHA.

The final version of the preliminary agenda is now available here [PDF]. Some sessions will feature keynote speakers, or be led by invited guests. A large number of papers from around the world have been selected for presentation, and details of these and their timings are given in the Abstract Programme available which will be available soon.

What are national health accounts?

National health accounts (NHA) a globally-accepted tool that provides countries with a systematic, comprehensive, and consistent means to monitor resource flows in a country’s health system for a given period. They are designed to capture the full range of information contained in these resource flows and to reflect the main functions of health care financing: resource mobilization and allocation, pooling and insurance, purchasing of care, and the distribution of benefits. NHA allows policy-makers and experts to address some basic sets of questions:

• Where do the resources come from?
• Where do the resources go?
• What kinds of services and goods do they purchase?
• Who provides what services?
• Whom do they benefit?

WHO and other agencies endorse the use of a standardized NHA as a core element in a country’s health information system. With the development of international standards in the past decade, countries around the world can compile comparable and systematic data on their health expenditure flows.

As the number of countries that have adopted NHA increases, issues that have emerged include how to best build capacity in countries to compile NHA on a routine basis, how to best communicate the use of NHA statistics to policy-makers, and how can NHA be used to improve the analysis of health systems.

The Sixth Global NHA Symposium provides a unique opportunity for those interested in NHA to bring themselves up to date with the latest trends and developments, share and learn about NHA experience around the world, and interact with the leading figures in the field from both international agencies and national organizations.

Participation in the Sixth Global NHA Symposium does not require any registration fees nor do participants have to be members of iHEA.

Call of abstracts:

Several open sessions are planned for presentation of recent work on health accounts. Submissions for the open sessions were made through this website through an open call, which closed on 13 March 2009. Over 80 abstract proposals were submitted, and were then reviewed for scientific and technical merit by the members of the Symposium Programme Committee, with each abstract reviewed independently by three reviewers. On the basis of this review, the highest ranked authors have been offered an opportunity to present their work as oral presentations, and a second category of authors have been offered the opportunity to do the same through poster presentations.

Developing country participants:

The Sixth Global NHA Symposium is making special efforts to increase participation of developing country experts, and funding support has been made available by several institutions to enable many Symposium participants to attend. We are especially grateful to WHO, World Bank, USAID, IHEA and IHP for this support.

Programme Committee:

A Programme Committee comprising NHA experts from around the world was selected and has been responsible for organizing the Symposium agenda. Its members are Peter Berman, Mark Bura, Susna De, George Godsatze, Patricia Hernandez, Yang Hongwei, Gabriel Leung, Eva Orosz, Ravi P. Rannan-Eliya, Magdalena Rathe, Hossein Salehi, Zhao Yuxin, Keith Tin and Stephen Musau.

Sponsors:

The Symposium would not have been possible without the financial and logistical support of its key sponsors, who are WHO, World Bank and USAID.

Registration:

Registration remains open. As the online IHEA registration system has now closed, last minute applicants are requested to apply by sending an email with all relevant details to nha2009@healtheconomics.org with copy to gyamerahv@who.int. The required details are:

• First Name
• Last Name
• How you wish your name to be written on Symposium badge
• Organization
• Title/designation
• State
• Country

Please also indicate this is a request for participation by including the words “Symposium Application” in the subject header of the email. Participants may also register on the day at the Symposium site itself.

For queries, please contact the organizers at nha2009@healtheconomics.org.