Ghana has come a long way in improvinghealth outcomes and it performs reasonably well whencompared to the other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).However, when its health outcomes are compared to othercountries globally with similar incomes and health spendinglevels, its performance is more mixed. Ghana's healthoutcome performances, in terms of child health and maternalhealth, are worse than the levels found in other comparablelower middle income and health spending countries, but lifeexpectancy is better. Ghana's demographic profile ischanging, and demographic, epidemiological, and nutritiontransitions are well underway. The dependency ratio isexpected to be favorably affected by the expanding largenumbers of individuals entering the labor force, whilefertility albeit still high continues to decline. It is theright time for Ghana to take advantage of this potentialdemographic dividend. Taking appropriate steps to improveemployment opportunities is critical or else the countrywill face economic pressures as well as political unrest.There is a funding shortage for public health goods. Manypublic health goods, such as immunization and familyplanning, are generally heavily subsidized, with tax ordonor financing. However, Ghana has a low allocation ofpublic funds to meet the demands for family planningcommodities. The private sector has responded somewhat tothis market failure by selling family planning commoditiesin private pharmacies, thereby increasing supply. Morbidityand mortality from communicable disease (CD) are highlyprevalent in Ghana, and make up fifty three percent of thedisease burden. Although, cost-effective interventions areoffered, a significant proportion of morbidity and mortalityis still CD related.
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