AccScience Publishing / AIH / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/AIH025170033
ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE

Forecasting world health expenditures: A hybrid artificial intelligence framework

Taegeon Yu1 Daipayan Bera1 Abbas Maazallahi2 Roschlynn Dsouza1 Francina Pali1 Wen-Shan Liu1 Payam Norouzzadeh3 Eli Snir4 Bahareh Rahmani1*
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1 Department of Health and Clinical Outcomes Research, School of Medicine, Saint Louis University, Saint Louis, Missouri, United States of America
2 Department of Computer Science, School of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science, College of Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
3 Department of Analytics, School for Professional Studies, Saint Louis University, Saint Louis, Missouri, United States of America
4 Department of Business Analytics, Olin Business School, Washington University in Saint Louis, Saint Louis, Missouri, United States of America
Received: 21 April 2025 | Revised: 4 July 2025 | Accepted: 12 August 2025 | Published online: 22 September 2025
© 2025 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

Global healthcare expenditures continue to rise, posing substantial economic challenges, particularly for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where resource constraints intensify the impact. Accurate forecasting, efficient resource allocation, and equitable policy development are essential to address these growing pressures. This study presents a hybrid analytical framework that integrates generative artificial intelligence (AI) with traditional econometric and machine learning models to analyze and predict trends of healthcare expenditure. Utilizing data from the World Bank and World Health Organization, we applied generative adversarial networks, hierarchical clustering, support vector machines, and autoregressive integrated moving average models to uncover spending patterns, simulate policy scenarios, and tackle disparities in health investment. Generative AI played a pivotal role by augmenting sparse and incomplete datasets, particularly from underrepresented LMICs, identifying anomalies, and generating realistic synthetic data to support robust forecasting. This enabled the development of more inclusive, equity-focused health resource planning tools. The results demonstrate improved forecasting accuracy and offer deeper insights into regional and income-based differences in expenditure trends. By combining traditional machine learning with cutting-edge generative models, this study advances a scalable, data-driven approach to support global health decision-making. Ultimately, generative AI is highlighted as a transformative enabler of equitable, informed strategies in the management of global healthcare expenditures.

Graphical abstract
Keywords
Healthcare expenditure
Generative artificial intelligence
Autoregressive integrated moving average
Health equity
Support vector machines
Low- and middle-income countries
Funding
None.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare they have no competing interests.
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Artificial Intelligence in Health, Electronic ISSN: 3029-2387 Print ISSN: 3041-0894, Published by AccScience Publishing