Chart assignment

Charts to read and discuss

Read each chart, then answer its questions. Every chart shows its source and date; open it for a table of the numbers and the data to download.

  1. Who runs clinical trials?
  2. How much does each country spend on health care per person?

Chart 1 of 2 · Clinical trials

Who runs clinical trials?

The interactive chart needs JavaScript. The numbers are on the chart's page.

Universities, hospitals and nonprofits lead about 324,000 of the 466,000 clinical trials registered on ClinicalTrials.gov as of November 2026, or 70%. Drug, device and other companies lead about 114,000, or 25%; the U.S. National Institutes of Health leads about 7,900. The lead sponsor is the organization responsible for the trial; others may help pay for it.

Questions to discuss

  1. In one sentence of your own, what does this chart show?
  2. Find the biggest change or difference in the chart. What might explain it?
  3. Who collected these numbers, and how recent are they? What else would you want to know before drawing a conclusion?

Source: ClinicalTrials.gov (U.S. National Library of Medicine), counted with its API v2 (Public domain (U.S. government work); source National Library of Medicine) · Data as of Nov 4, 2026

Open the chart and its numbers

Chart 2 of 2 · World

How much does each country spend on health care per person?

The interactive chart needs JavaScript. The numbers are on the chart's page.

In 2023, the United States spent $13,473 per person on health care, about 10 times the world figure of $1,317. Germany spent $6,395, Japan $3,638, China $763 and India $85; Madagascar spent the least, $17. Search 191 countries and territories. Spending counts what governments, insurers and households paid for health care, but not new hospitals or equipment, in US dollars at each year's exchange rates, not adjusted for differences in prices.

How to read this chart

Each bar is what a country spent on health care in a year, by governments, insurers and households together, divided by its population and turned into U.S. dollars. The dashed line is the world. The figures aren't adjusted for prices, so a dollar buys more care in some countries than others.

Questions to discuss

  1. About how many times the world figure does the United States spend per person?
  2. Does spending more on health care per person always mean people live longer? What other chart on Chartly could help you check?
  3. Doctors and nurses are paid less in some countries. How would that change what these dollar figures can tell you?

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