🌅 America’s ROI on Global Health Research

SOURCE

Global Health Technologies Coalition (2024)

WHAT TO KNOW

• A recent report by the Global Health Technologies Coalition found the $46 billion America spent on global health research and development from 2007 to 2022 produced dozens of treatments, 600,000 jobs, and $104 billion in domestic economic activity. The investment is also expected to spur another $102 billion in industry investment and ultimately generate $255 billion for the American economy, a six-fold return on the investment.

WHY IT MATTERS

• Over the past two decades, every $1 spent on global health research into neglected and emerging infectious diseases has returned $405 in societal benefits, valued by the lives extended, disabilities avoided, and broader societal advantages of enhancing our scientific knowledge. For example, the lifesaving malaria vaccine produced through a research partnership between the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research—the U.S. Department of Defense’s largest biomedical research facility—and pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline in the 1980s now helps prevent 1 in 8 childhood deaths in malaria-affected parts of sub-Saharan Africa. That same vaccine technology also serves as the basis for the shingles vaccine in the U.S., which is expected to prevent 9 million cases of shingles and $55 billion in health-care costs by 2050.

CONNECT THE DOTS

• A 2025 survey by the Association of Science and Technology Centers found 94% of Americans rely on federal science on a weekly basis, including the use of weather forecasts, food safety warnings, and economic reports. At the same time, the Trump administration has cut federal science funding to its lowest level in the past three decades, which experts believe will ultimately set technology, health care, and the American economy back for decades.