Health Financing: Priority Setting and Medicine Pricing

In an era of rising healthcare costs, governments and organizations face the critical challenge of allocating limited resources to achieve the greatest public health impact. Understanding how to decide what services to fund and how to secure fair prices for essential medicines is key to building sustainable healthcare systems. This written course equips you with the foundational concepts of health financing, priority setting, and pharmaceutical pricing. You will learn how to analyze health budgets, evaluate resource allocation, and understand the mechanisms that make life-saving medicines affordable. What you'll learn: 1. Understand the core principles of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and public health financing. 2. Analyze explicit priority-setting frameworks to determine which health services to fund. 3. Explore Health Technology Assessment (HTA) to evaluate the clinical and economic value of medical interventions. 4. Study pricing mechanisms and procurement strategies to make essential medicines more affordable. 5. Examine policy instruments used globally to negotiate and regulate pharmaceutical prices. 6. Apply basic economic evaluation concepts to real-world health budget challenges. Starting with foundational health economic definitions, this course guides you through structured priority-setting methodologies before exploring practical pharmaceutical policy and pricing instruments. This text-based course is designed for beginners and requires no prior background in economics or healthcare administration. Start reading today to build your expertise in modern health policy and sustainable resource allocation.