Dean Jamison Gavin Yamey Naomi Beyeler Hester Wadge
This paper argues that governments should make better investment of their resources to help contain the severity of some of the deadliest health problems we face today.
Investing in Health Forum will examine how investment across various sectors can reduce mortality and simultaneously boost inclusive income, presenting synthesized findings that illustrate the economic returns sustained from research and development across health industries. The conference will draw on case studies from China, Ghana and Myanmar to support parts of the findings. Participants will argue that publicly financed health interventions and cost effectiveness have the potential to boost social welfare, presenting research on the impact of publicly financed insurance and ways to raise public financing in universal health coverage. One case study will show that in Lebanon, for example, an increase in tobacco tax would enhance financial risk protection. Finally, the speakers will recommend that the actionable policy implications derived from the above research should be directed towards governments as well as donors.
Dean Jamison is Professor Emeritus of Global Health at the University of California, San Francisco. In 2006-2008 he served as the T. & G. Angelopoulos Visiting Professor of Public Health and International Development in the Harvard Kennedy School and the Harvard School of Public Health. Previously, Dean had been at University of California, Los Angeles (1988-2006) and at the World Bank (1976-1988). His last position at the World Bank was Director, World Development Report Office and lead author for the Bank’s 1993 World Development Report, Investing in Health. His publications are in the areas of economic theory, public health and education. Jamison studied at Stanford (M.S., Engineering Science) and at Harvard (Ph.D., Economics, under K.J. Arrow). In 1994 he was elected to membership in the National Academy of Medicine. Jamison was recently co-first author with Lawrence Summers of ‘Global Health 2035’, the report of the Lancet Commission on Investing in Health (The Lancet, December 2013). His publications are in the areas of economic theory, public health and education.