Future disease-specific health spending and burden of disease in Norway, 2019 to 2040

Abstract

The expected increase in the proportion of elderly, with increasing rates of chronic diseases, presents a challenge to the Norwegian healthcare system. In this study, we project the future burden of disease and health spending by health conditions from 2019 to 2040; and explore the importance of 1) population growth, 2) population composition, and 3) future epidemiological development for these projections. We find that total, and per capita, health spending is projected to increase in three scenarios (reference, better and worse health) from 2020 to 2040 for communicable diseases, non-communicable diseases, and injuries. The increased proportion of elderly drives the increase in health spending. When keeping the age composition constant (and by this account for the increased proportion of elderly), we find that per capita health spending decreases in the reference and better health scenario but not in the worse-health scenario. If Norway aims to provide care at current levels in the future, substantial reductions in the cost of care is needed. If not, increased health spending is inevitable, due to chronic conditions in old age.