Comparative Research for the Healthcare Budget and Burden of Disease in Perspective Resource Allocation

Park, So-Youn; Yoon, Seok-Jun; Park, Hyesook; Jo, Min-Woo; Oh, In-Hwan

The year 2017 was significant for Korean health policy. The Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW), under President Moon's government, established new policies to promote healthy living in Korea. 1,2 These policies included "enhancement of customized welfare services by life-cycle phase," "establishment of health insurance system centered on people," and "strengthening responses to demographic crisis." The main investment directions of research and development (R&D) for the MOHW in connection with these policies are to promote new and more advanced medical industries, to reinforce public R&D, and to advance human-centered disease research (Fig. 1) . Although the growth of the government's total R&D budget is slowing, the R&D budget of the MOHW has steadily increased over the past seven years because of the recognition that health is vital to people's quality of life. The R&D budget of the MOHW is divided by 2 categories which are major R&D budget and general R&D budget. General R&D budget is used for institutional expenses and policy studies and so on. The major R&D budget of the MOHW was USD 435.1 million for 32 projects in 2018. 2 Previous research on principles for fund allocation identified some underlying factors: varying needs among recipients, competing goals in different sectors (university, industry, and national laboratories), and specific emerging policy issues. 3, 4 Evidence suggests that all these elements play a role in funding allocation. 4 In Korea, since the first case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) was reported to the government in May 2015, there have been many changes in the government's support of R&D. There has also been an increase in the awareness of the importance of health system strengthening as a prerequisite to providing essential medical services during each stage of life. 1 To adapt to an ever-changing environment as well as to achieve the correct levels of resource allocation, decision makers should consider using a coherent, disciplined, and comprehensive approach for deciding on an allocation of R&D funds. One way to assess prioritization in health care budget is to match measures of the burden of disease, such as disability adjusted life years (DALYs), along with economic burden and budget prioritization. 5 The aim of this study, then, was to investigate whether the MOHW's R&D budget has responded to the burden of diseases in Korea.