FINANCIAL ASPECTS OF HEALTH PROTECTION
Authors: Cvetanović Slobodan , Ribać Sretko , Despotović Danijela 
Published: September 2019

In addition to education, health is a basic component of human capital. Until recently the significance of health of the population was not the subject of serious study in economic science. However, in recent research, health is increasingly treated as a factor with long-term effect on economic development. It was concluded that the realisation of various health programmes had pronounced and numerous economic effects. The improvement of health services resulted in reduced mortality rate between the developed and underdeveloped countries, which had effect on economic growth. The health of individuals is reflected in biological, psychological, and social sphere, and their interaction. The more healthy individuals in a society, the easier it is to drive economic development. Thus in the economy of health the “production “of health as an important process in human capital increases. Total health “production” is determined by numerous factors such as available income, property, degree of education, genetic predisposition and level of public health. Besides, many other factors that determine life style of an individual are also important, which influences the creation of health needs like smoking, alcohol and drug consumption etc. These factors have impact on health “production” by using the available financial resources. Here, the possibilities of new technologies to satisfy various needs for health care should also be mentioned, since they are unavoidably connected with the increasing finances. Treatment of health protection as a domain where health is “produced” leads to conclusion that it is possible, in analytical sense, to express the relation between health status (of an individual, certain group of people, or ethnic community) as a result of health protection system and factors that determine that status in the form of production function Health = F (health protection, other inputs, time). This does not refer so much to health industry, aimed at preventing diseases (although it is important as well), but, first and foremost, to prevention and healthy lifestyle (diet, physical activity, finding right measures for each thing, avoiding harmful substances and pollution of the environment). Healthy life, of course, includes sufficient free time and appropriate living standard. Health of labour is particularly affected by healthy diet, healthy working environment, appropriate daily, weekly, and annual breaks, appropriate housing, organized care of employees’ young children, organization of physical and social activities in the company, and the like. In this context, the central problem of health protection system management is how to provide maximum possible level of health status of population with the available finances allocated for health protection. Health economists, logically, cannot directly influence the improvement of health status of the population, but can be useful in increase of efficiency in the use of available finances for health care, i.e. increase the level of health status of the population by using the same amount of finances.