In 2019, Switzerland spent an estimated CHF 1.8 billion on prevention and health promotion (PHP). Between 2010 and 2019, this expenditure accounted for between 2.2% and 2.7% of all health care costs, placing Switzerland in the lower half of OECD states (OECD, 2019). The Confederation, cantons and communes bear around a third, the social insurances roughly a fifth of this expenditure (see “PHP expenditure by financing scheme” indicator).
With regard to services, around 15% of expenditure went on the organisation and management of state PHP efforts. 10.5% of funds were spent on addiction and NCD prevention projects in the cantons and communes, 9.7% for health care in schools, 8.6% for food security and 6.1% for the prevention of occupational accidents and diseases as well as recreational accidents. The category “other prevention” accounted for the largest share of total PHP expenditure, with 50%. More than 200 civil health organisations provide a wide range of prevention and health promotion services. The financial volume of this category of services underlines the important role of private stakeholders in prevention and health promotion in Switzerland.
This indicator is part of the Monitoring System Addiction and NCD (MonAM) of the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH).
Healthy ageing is an important objective of the Federal Council’s Health 2030 Strategy. People of all age groups should encounter conditions favourable to a healthy life. This should also allow the unfavourable cost trend in the health care system to be curtailed. Investments in prevention and health promotion services make an important contribution towards achieving these goals. The range of services in Switzerland is broad and very diverse:
The indicator shows the percentage share of PHP expenditure in total health cost expenditure in Switzerland. It also shows PHP expenditure by service category.
The indicator is calculated on the basis of the Federal Statistical Office’s (FSO) “Health care costs and financing statistics”, analysing monetary flows in the area of “prevention”. The statistics present a synthesis of all available figures for an estimation of the monetary flows associated with the production, consumption and financing of goods and services of the Swiss health system during one year. The expenditure includes both material and personnel costs. The data are updated annually.
Service category titles:
Switzerland’s 26 independent cantons finance their own prevention and health promotion. There is no uniformly applied definition as to what comes under prevention or health promotion. This makes it difficult to assign data in a uniform manner. For this reason, this indicator can only make an approximate estimate of PHP expenditure.
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