Measuring progress towards universal health coverage: with an application to 24 developing countries

Abstract

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

Monitoring process barriers and enables towards universal health coverage within the Sustainable Development Goals

“…As mentioned in the introduction, WHO and the World Bank had previously suggested tracer indicators that allow tracking progress towards UHC in any country. However, these indicators focus on achieving certain metrics of outputs and outcomes of the health system [5,42,43]. We aimed to complement this great work by developing a broader and more detailed framework that could provide additional insights into the process of such progress Social infrastructure and social sustainability (dimensions 1-2) seem to be influential factors in progress towards UHC: society literacy, community income, poverty, age group and population [201].…”

“…Significant efforts were made by the WHO and the World Bank Group to identify suitable universal UHC tracer indicators to measure progress towards UHC, for example using UHC index [5,42,43]. A study conducted in Iran already tested a smaller set of tracer indicators in accordance with national and global goals and priorities, even though it was predominantly focused on monitoring and evaluation framework of the most recent healthcare reform (Health Transformation Plan) [44].…”

“…Some other practical applications of tracking progress towards UHC include monitoring equity in UHC with essential services for neglected tropical diseases [5,43], using health service coverage index [45,46] or focusing on the effective coverage and delineating of three components of the metricsneed, use, and quality [47].…”

Class Structure, Labor Market Heterogeneity, and Living Conditions in Latin America

“…Finally, in relation to health insurance (Table 6), there is great variability in national health systems, in terms of both the extent and mechanisms of incorporation and the levels of segmentation within health institutions (Wagstaff et al 2016;Cotlear et al 2015;Londoño and Frenk 1997). In Brazil, Mexico, and Uruguay, public health insurance programs have high coverage levels, but the quality and effective access to services is highly Note: Estimates based on microdata from national household surveys (see Table A1).…”

Policies to mitigate health inequity: a comparison of Israel and 24 developing countries

“…The UHC cube diagrammatically illustrates the idea that UHC has three dimensions: The first is the population covered, the second is the benefits covered and the third is the financial risk protection covered. Equity is a core principle of UHC; the importance of equity is shown by the emphasis it receives in the proposed monitoring instruments that have been developed to track progress towards UHC [4]. In countries where population coverage is not universal, making it universal is perceived as a first step.…”