Assessment of Health Budget during the First to Fifth Socioeconomic Developmental Programs in Iran

Health is the most important and expensive components of the socioeconomic development in social development of any country. In each country, the economic resources are annually allocated to various sections of the industry, agriculture, health, and etc. The health budget is due to the views and priorities of the policy makers and planners in any country. This study evaluated the health budget trend and allocation of the total budget to it during the first to fourth socioeconomic developmental programs. This study focused on the analysis of the health policies. The collected data were based on the books “Law of the country budget" in four socioeconomic developmental programs. The allocated percentage to health and the growth trend of total and health budgets were calculated during the fifth developmental programs. All three budgets in the total and health areas have increased in five programs except in the last year of the fourth program. The allocated budget to the health from total budget in industry, agriculture, and etc. was decreased from 5.99 % in the first program to 0.81 % in the fourth socioeconomic developmental program but it increased in the fifth program. Despite the growth in health budget from the first to the fourth program, the allocated budget to health was constantly decreasing compared to the other sections such as industry and so on. Therefore, policy makers and planners should pay more attention to allocation of resources to health.