Kahn, Mwai, Kazi, and Marseille explain how economics brings together estimates of disease burden and the costs needed to reduce that burden so that policymakers can choose which intervention strategies will maximize health gains with available resources. The authors introduce and illustrate key health economics methods, including econometrics, cost-benefit analysis, micro-costing, behavioural economics, work force projections, financing, and discrete choice experimentation.

Maina and Mwai describe the policy utility of National Health Accounts (NHA) tool for tracking health spending especially for countries aiming to achieve Universal Health Coverage. They trace the history of health resource tracking and the introduction of NHA based on the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development’s System of Health Accounts methodology. They describe data collection for and preparation of NHA which disaggregate expenditures by four dimensions: sources of financing, financing agents, types of health-care providers and types of health-care functions.

Kenya has the world’s 4th largest HIV burden. Various strategies to control the epidemic have been implemented, including the implementation of viral load (VL) testing to monitor HIV patients on ARVs. Like many resource limited settings, Kenya’s healthcare system faces serious challenges in effectively providing quality health services to its population.