Health Economics in a World of Uneconomic Growth

This article summarises the multiple pathways by which uneconomic growth can be expected to harm human health. It describes how health care systems— especially through overuse, low value and poor quality care—can themselves drive uneconomic growth. Health economists need to understand not only the consequences of environmental impacts on health care, but also the significance of uneconomic growth, and pay closer attention to the growing body o f work by heterodox economists, especially in the fields of ecological and feminist economics. This will involve paying closer heed to the existence and consequences of diminishing marginal returns to health care consumption at high levels; the central importance of inequalities and injustice in hea lth; and the need to remedy health economists’ currently limited ability to deal effectively with low value care, overdiagnosis and overtreatment.
Source: Applied Health Economics and Health Policy - Category: Health Management Source Type: research