Health and medical research helps to improve health and wellbeing through identifying, curing and preventing disease, injury and disability, and improving health services and their delivery. In Australia, health and medical research has contributed to developments that have improved the health and wellbeing of people all over the world. These have included, for example, in-vitro fertilisation (Professor Carl Wood), the artificial heart valve (Dr Victor Chang), the role of Helicobacter pylori in peptic ulcer formation (Professor Barry Marshall and Emeritus Professor Robin Warren) and work to understand the role of antibodies in the immune system (Professor Sir Gustav Nossal) (AAMRI 2019).
Health and medical research can also lead to positive economic outcomes, such as a more productive workforce. It may also help to reduce the amount spent on health care, especially in the context of an ageing population.
What is health and medical research?
The definition of health and medical research can vary. Health and medical research encompasses a wide array of disciplines, activities, researchers and research institutions, and may include, for example, laboratory research, clinical trials or epidemiological studies (AAMRI 2019).
Health and medical research can take place in universities, hospitals and other medical institutions and companies by a range of professionals, including scientists, nurses, general practitioners and medical specialists (Research Australia 2019). Applied research conducted in some institutions, such as at the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, may be considered health and medical research, but is outside the scope of this article.
Health and medical research is funded by a wide range of government and non-government entities, including the Australian Government, state and territory governments, not-for-profit organisations and private businesses. Additionally, many individual Australians support health and medical research through philanthropic and charitable donations. In 2017–18, total spending on health and medical research accounted for about 0.3% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and 3.0% of total health spending (AIHW 2019). These figures exclude commercially-oriented research funded by private businesses where the costs of the research are likely to be included in the prices charged for goods and services (for example, medications that have been developed and or supported by research activities).
Spending on health and medical research in Australia increased in real terms from $3.7 billion in 2007–08 to $5.6 billion in 2017–18 (AIHW 2019) (Figure 1). Of this, $4.4 billion (78%) was contributed by the Australian Government. State and territory governments contributed $0.8 billion (15%), and $0.4 billion (7.2%) was contributed by the non-government sector.