Cancer Mortality Reductions Were Greatest Among Countries Where Cancer Care Spending Rose The Most, 1995–2007

Stevens, Philipson, Khan, Goldman, and colleagues compared cancer care across 16 countries over time, examining changes in cancer spending and two measures of cancer mortality (amenable and excess mortality). They found that, compared to low-spending health systems, high-spending systems had consistently lower cancer mortality in the period 1995–2007, and the countries that increased spending the most had a 17 percent decrease in amenable mortality, compared to 8 percent in countries with the lowest growth in cancer spending. For excess mortality, the corresponding decreases were 13 percent and 9 percent. Additionally, the rate of decrease for the countries with the highest spending growth was faster than the all-country trend. These findings are consistent with the existence of a link between higher cancer spending and lower cancer mortality.

The full study is available at Health Affairs.

Citation: Stevens, W., Philipson, T. J., Khan, Z. M., MacEwan, J. P., Linthicum, M. T., & Goldman, D. P. (2015). Cancer Mortality Reductions Were Greatest Among Countries Where Cancer Care Spending Rose The Most, 1995–2007. Health Affairs.