Donors of development assistance for health typically provide funding for a range of disease focus areas, such as maternal health and child health, malaria, HIV/AIDS, and other infectious diseases. But funding for each disease category does not match closely its contribution to the disability and loss of life it causes and the cost-effectiveness of interventions. We argue that peer influences in the social construction of global health priorities contribute to explaining this misalignment. Aid policy-makers are embedded in a social environment encompassing other donors, health experts, advocacy groups, and international officials. This social environment influences the conceptual and normative frameworks of decision-makers, which in turn affect their funding priorities. Aid policy-makers are especially likely to emulate decisions on funding priorities taken by peers with whom they are most closely involved in the context of expert and advocacy networks. We draw on novel data on donor connectivity through health IGOs and health INGOs and assess the argument by applying spatial regression models to health aid disbursed globally between 1990 and 2017. The analysis provides strong empirical support for our argument that the involvement in overlapping expert and advocacy networks shapes funding priorities regarding disease categories and recipient countries in health aid.

中文翻译：

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全球卫生优先事项的社会建构：双边卫生援助传染的实证分析

卫生发展援助的捐助者通常为一系列疾病重点领域提供资金，例如孕产妇健康和儿童健康、疟疾、艾滋病毒/艾滋病和其他传染病。但是，每种疾病类别的资金与其对残疾和生命损失的贡献以及干预措施的成本效益并不匹配。我们认为，全球卫生优先事项的社会建构中的同伴影响有助于解释这种错位。援助政策制定者融入社会环境，包括其他捐助者、卫生专家、倡导团体和国际官员。这种社会环境影响决策者的概念和规范框架，进而影响他们的资助优先事项。援助政策制定者特别有可能效仿在专家和倡导网络背景下与他们最密切相关的同行所采取的资助优先事项的决定。我们通过卫生 IGO 和卫生 INGO 获取有关捐助者连通性的新数据，并通过将空间回归模型应用于 1990 年至 2017 年期间全球支付的卫生援助来评估这一论点。该分析为我们的论点提供了强有力的实证支持，即参与重叠的专家和倡导网络确定了有关疾病类别和受援国在卫生援助方面的供资优先事项。