U.S. Global Health Spending Watch is a public dashboard designed to support policy analysis, accountability, and advocacy by making federal global health spending patterns transparent and accessible. It helps decision-makers, journalists, advocates, and the public see where U.S. global health commitments are made, how they change over time, and which agencies and programs are driving those shifts.
The dashboard is built on underlying financial data drawn from public U.S. government sources, including federal spending and accounting systems. Rather than relying on budget announcements or policy statements, it shows how funds are actually obligated and distributed in practice. These data reveal which organizations receive funding, what types of activities are supported, and how priorities differ across countries and technical areas. By comparing stated policy goals with observed spending patterns, the dashboard makes it possible to assess whether U.S. global health investments align with stated objectives—and where gaps or inconsistencies may exist.
This analysis, triangulated with field reports from implementers, patients, and frontline health practitioners, illuminates the strategic priorities and policy orientations of the U.S. government, as well as the downstream implications of these approaches for global health and health security moving forward.
PUBLICATIONS
POLICY BRIEF: A Primer on the US Government's Approach to Global Health Security
Published: 7/1/2025
OUR TEAM
K. J. Seung, MD
Associate Physician, Division of Global Health Equity, MGB
K. J. Seung, MD is a physician and public health leader with more than two decades of experience designing and leading large-scale global health and outbreak response programs, with a focus on translating evidence into policy and practice in TB, HIV, antimicrobial resistance, and pandemic preparedness. He has held senior leadership roles in major international initiatives, including serving as co-leader of endTB, a project that expanded access to new tuberculosis drugs and generated some of the largest observational studies and clinical trials of drug-resistant TB treatment worldwide. He has worked closely with major funders such as Unitaid and USAID on the design, financing, and oversight of complex, multicountry programs.
His research and policy work has been published in leading journals and outlets including The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, Clinical Infectious Diseases, PLOS Medicine, The New York Times, and The Atlantic.
Vincent Lin
Associate Director of Health Policy and Advocacy, Partners in Health
Vincent Lin is Associate Director of Health Policy and Advocacy at Partners In Health, where he leads federal global health policy analysis and supports grassroots and coalition advocacy. At Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health, he studied tuberculosis microbiology and policy and worked with the late Dr. Paul Farmer on Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds: Ebola and the Ravages of History (2020).
Leanne Friedrich, Ph.D
Analyst, TB Fighters
Leanne Friedrich, Ph.D. is a scientist and software engineer with a background in materials science who has spent the bulk of her career in public service. She is an organizer with TBFighters, a global activist collective devoted to ending the structural causes of tuberculosis.
Margaret Bourdeaux, MD, MPH
Investigator, Division of Global Health Equity, MGB
Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School
Founding Director, HSPA
Margaret Bourdeaux, MD, MPH is the Founding Director of the Health Security Policy Academy (HSPA) at Brigham and Women's Hospital, which engages medical and public health practitioners in biosecurity, health security, and global health policy research. Her work focuses on the governance of health systems and strengthening their resilience in crisis- and conflict-affected settings.
Dr. Bourdeaux is faculty in Harvard Medical School's Department of Global Health and Social Medicine. She is a faculty affiliate at the Berkman-Klein Center for the Internet & Society, and a former faculty fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. She is dual-trained in pediatrics and internal medicine, and holds an MPH from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and an MD from Yale School of Medicine. Her work has been published in outlets including Health Affairs, Foreign Policy, Health Security, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and NPR, and she has presented at forums such as the Munich Security Conference, the World Health Assembly, and the World Health Summit.