Health Systems Research - Other Topics
Aging and health expenditure
Demographic change and in particular ageing will have a important impacts on the future of the Australian health system, with the Intergenerational Reports bringing this issues to the nations attention in recent years. The Prime Minister at the time referred to the first Intergenerational Report as the most influential publication to come out of government in recent years. The then Treasurer, addressing the National Press Club claimed that “in practically every portfolio area – health, education ...– the IGR now provides the overall architecture within which we operate”.
A/Prof Schofield has been involved in methods for forecasting health expenditure in the Intergenerational Reports. Subsequent long term forecasting has included the demand for public hospital bed days, projected retirements from the health workforce, and the projected impacts of chronic disease on labour force participation undertaken with the team working on the ARC/PFizer grant on the Economic impacts of illness.
Philip Clarke in collaboration with Professor Bob Gregory from the Australian National University has undertaken work on costs towards the end of life and its implications for health expenditure using a unique administrative data on over 70,000 veterans for the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Researchers Involved
Selected Publications
Schofield D & Earnest A (2006). Demographic change and the future demand for public hospital care in Australia, 2005 to 2050, Australian Health Review 30 (4) pp 507-515.
Harding, Ann, Richard, Percival, Deborah Schofield and Agnes Walker (2000), The Lifetime Distributional Impact of Government Health Outlays, Australian Economic Review, vol 35, issue 4, pp 363-379
Deborah Schofield and George Rothman (2007) Projections of Commonwealth Health Expenditure in Australia’s First Intergenerational Report, in Gupta, A. and Harding, A. (eds.), Modelling Our Future: Population Ageing, Health and Aged Care, Chapter 7, International Symposia in Economic Theory and Econometrics, Volume 16, Elsevier B. V., Amsterdam, pp. pp.149-168.