Indicator: COVID-19 impact on spending

[jm-rivera]

Did COVID-19 impact country spending in 2020?

How would you like to assess that? Possible options:

• We compare spending levels (in real terms) with the average of the previous 2-3 years (if so how many years)
• We compare with other notable changes in spending levels (other crises like Ebola?)
• We index to some year (like 2015 to link to the SDGs) and we see how spending has evolved since then (so 2015 levels = 100), to assess if 2020 was indeed out of the norm
• other ideas...?

What do you think?

Originally posted by @jm-rivera in #2 (comment)

[nupur-parikh]

Great question I've been trying to think about this as I don't know if there are enough countries with COVID-19 data in GHED to credibly compare. I think there were 37 countries that reported COVID data..so is it viable to look at that? If we were too look at just aid from a donor perspective, like the ODA page, it's a little clearer.

I like the idea of comparing spending levels (in real terms) with the average of the previous 2-3 years ( I wouldn't go further back than 2017). But again I'm not sure it's a viable comparison given limited data on COVID spending.

the other option I thought of was just making a separate header that shows how much/where the 37 countries with data spent on COVID-19 and the different COVID functions. If we wanted to do comparison, we could do comparison across income groups or country for each function ?? I don't know if this is too much detail for a topic page (feel free to reject the idea)

[jm-rivera]

Thanks @nupur-parikh! We can definitely have a closer look at the COVID indicator/data.

However, even if we didn't have 'detailed' COVID data for all countries, if they have data for 2020, we could say something about how spending levels changed in 2020. Since 2020 was the year of the pandemic, we could infer that it had to do something with COVID. Not as good as having actual 'COVID' data, but we'll probably see some effect.

For this

the other option I thought of was just making a separate header that shows how much/where the 37 countries with data spent on COVID-19 and the different COVID functions. If we wanted to do comparison, we could do comparison across income groups or country for each function ?? I don't know if this is too much detail for a topic page (feel free to reject the idea)

I'm not sure I follow. Could you provide more details?

[nupur-parikh]

Sorry I didn't explain that well at all. From my understand GHED breaks down COVID-19 spending by different function like spending on COVID-19 vaccines, medical goods, and testing. I was thinking we could look at how different income groups/regions financed their COVID-19 response in 2020 as a point of analysis as well. This may be too much detail for a topic page though. But I like your idea of looking at the data for 2020 and seeing if there is some inference we could make on spending.

[jm-rivera]

@nupur-parikh for the changes between the 2017-19 average and 2020, here are some numbers. All the charts here are very rough just to show you the data a bit

Here is the percentage change (in real terms)

And here median share of GDP terms

We could go for different types of visuals, including for example showing the trend over time and then for 2020 having a 'business as usual' dotted trend line and a line to the actual 2020 data. What do you think?

[jm-rivera]

Here is an example of the time series
https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/12628320/

[nupur-parikh]

Sorry just so I understand what I'm looking at here. The first visual is the percentage change in spending in USD between 17-19 and 2020. And the second is the median percentage change of GDP between 17-19 and 2020?

So the negative value for low income countries in the first visual shows that spending on health decreased by 7.1%? That's shocking! I do think the averaging of 17-19 may be harder to understand and instead like your idea of the time series, how are you determining the business as usual dotted trend line?

[jm-rivera]

Thanks @nupur-parikh

Sorry just so I understand what I'm looking at here. The first visual is the percentage change in spending in USD between 17-19 and 2020.

per capita spending (in real terms) between the average for 2017-19 compared to 2020.

And the second is the median percentage change of GDP between 17-19 and 2020?

The second is not the percentage change but the average health/gdp ratio for 2017-19 compared to the health/gdp ratio for 2020.

All are based on group medians.

So the negative value for low income countries in the first visual shows that spending on health decreased by 7.1%?

That seems to be the case in real terms, based on the median value for those countries

That's shocking! I do think the averaging of 17-19 may be harder to understand and instead like your idea of the time series, how are you determining the business as usual dotted trend line?

A linear regression on the previous 5 years (2015-19) projected to 2020, compared to the actual 2020 data.

[nupur-parikh]

Thank you for answering those questions!

Based on your explanation, I think for the purpose of this page lets do the time series with the linear regression projected to 2020. I like this idea to show how COVID could have impacted spending in 2020 by comparing it to a projection.

[jm-rivera]

Could this maybe be a Table that shows the data? Very few countries have it. Explain that there is limited data. Interpret with caution. So purpose would be to just make the data available.