Sustainable financing of health promotion services in selected countries: Best experience for developing countries

Sustainable health financing is one of the main challenges of policymakers in the health system. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the sustainable financing of health promotion services in 7 selected countries and to analyze the related documents in Iran in 2018.

This was a comparative and qualitative study (document analysis). In the comparative phase, the studies related to the selected countries- Australia, England, Germany, Japan, Turkey, Sweden, and Denmark- were investigated. In the second phase of the study, through a qualitative method of content analysis, 60 related documents were examined from 2005 to 2018. The initial evaluation of the documents was done using the Scott method and data were analyzed using Nvivo 8 software.

Based on the main findings of the study, there were a variety of approaches to the sustainable financing of health promotion services: excise taxes on goods; health-related behaviors regarding tobacco and alcohol consumption and gambling; using the capacities of social insurance funds in Germany and Turkey; and relying on the government budget in all the studied countries. According to the results of documents analysis related to the sustainable financing of health promotion in Iran, 3 main issues and 11 sub issues were identified.

Using any of these methods or a combination of them depends on the political, social, and cultural structure of each country. The provisions of the law seem to be almost comprehensive; however, implementation, operationalization and monitoring of these elements are of significant importance.