Clustering of OECD Countries Out of Pocket Health Expenditure Time Series Data

Out of pocket health expenditures points out to the payments made by households at the point they receive health services. Frequently these include doctor consultation fees, purchase of medication and hospital bills. In this study hierarchical clustering method was used for classification of 34 countries which are members of OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) in terms of out of pocket health expenditures for the years between 1995-2011. Longest common subsequences (LCS), correlation coefficient and Euclidean distance measure was used as a measure of similarity and distance in hierarchical clustering. At the end of the analysis it was found that LCS and Euclidean distance measures were the best for determining clusters. Furthermore, study results led to understand grouping of OECD countries according to health expenditures.