Delivery of financing for research in public health between countries usually is determined by the GDP (low, middle and high income countries, classification created by the World Bank).
Shouldn't we employ another way to measure wellness? Human development index could be an option (if it was estimated in a uniform way across countries)?
I would start with the great work done at the Centre for Well-Being at NEF (New Economics Foundation) - a think-and-do tank in London who developed the Happy Planet Index.
The HPI is a logical and superior alternative to GNP. It is based on
1. Longevity (Happy Life Years) - if people are happy they live 8-12 years longer
2. Sustainability (Ecological Footprint) - what resources do people use? If, as in the UK for example, they use three times more than their land can provide, you have a recipe for long-term unhappiness.
I would refer you to the work of Nic Marks who led the HPI development team. Watch his TED talk video at http://www.ted.com/talks/nic_marks_the_happy_planet_index.html and read his excellent TED book The Happiness Manifesto: How Nature and People Can Nurture Well-Being available http://www.ted.com/pages/tedbooks_library#NicMarks.
HPI is at http://www.happyplanetindex.org.
One of the best explanations of why GNP is such a bad flag to stand behind comes from Robert Kennedy: "The Gross National Product includes air pollution and advertising for cigarettes, and ambulance to clear our highways of carnage.
It counts special locks for our doors, and jails for the people who break them. GNP includes the destruction of the redwoods and the death of Lake Superior.
It grows with the production of napalm and missiles and nuclear warheads... And if GNP includes all this, there is much that it does not comprehend.
It does not allow for the health of our families, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It is indifferent to the decency of our factories and the safety of our streets alike.
It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, or the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials...
GNP measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country.
It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile; and it can tell us everything about America - except whether we are proud to be Americans."
Perhaps a triple bottom line approach as used in the Accounting and Finance area is the way to go. Most accounting texts will still have 34 of 35 chapters covering the economic (financial) elements. However, there is currently a big push towards
Integrated Reporting. Mervyn King is the driver (face) of international integrated reporting. A more systematic approach generally gives us better more informed answers to our questions. We do tend to rely on the aspects that can be measured - in many instances the qualitative aspects can provide contextual and more comprehensive meaning to the numbers.
Could you specify the goal of your question? For instance, are you searching a metric for allocating resources? On top of this, one common measure of health outcomes in Health Economics is QALY (Quality Adjusted Life Years).
Yes, I'm sorry Gianmaria. I mean an alternative metric to deliver public health funding across countries apart from the GDP of them. For example, the National Institute of Health of the US deliver financing to develop several projects in this issue according to the income category (low-middle-high) of countries.
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