International Perspectives on Resource Allocation

The improvement of health globally is arguably one of the most significant health policy and global strategic issues of the twenty-first century. What resources should be allocated to improve health and access to health care is contentious. Resource allocation choices are inevitable and those choices are complex, difficult, and morally problematic. Distributive justice, a primary moral concern of health systems, requires that the benefits and burdens of health-related services be prioritized according to morally relevant criteria. Knowing what resource allocation decisions to make would be quite simple if we could agree on both the need to do so and the criteria to guide allocations. However, examination of international experience has shown that there is no consensus about what and how allocation decisions should be made.