Measuring Progress towards Universal Health Coverage: With an Application to 24 Developing Countries

The last few years have seen a growing commitment worldwide to universal health coverage (UHC). Yet there is a lack of clarity on how to measure progress towards UHC. This paper proposes a 'mashup' index that captures both aspects of UHC: that everyone-irrespective of their ability-to-pay-...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
1. Verfasser: Wagstaff, Adam (VerfasserIn)
Format: Elektronisch E-Book
Sprache:English
Veröffentlicht: Washington, D.C The World Bank 2015
Schriftenreihe:World Bank E-Library Archive
Online-Zugang:Volltext
Zusammenfassung:The last few years have seen a growing commitment worldwide to universal health coverage (UHC). Yet there is a lack of clarity on how to measure progress towards UHC. This paper proposes a 'mashup' index that captures both aspects of UHC: that everyone-irrespective of their ability-to-pay-gets the health services they need; and that nobody suffers undue financial hardship as a result of receiving care. Service coverage is broken down into prevention and treatment, and financial protection into impoverishment and catastrophic spending; nationally representative household survey data are used to adjust population averages to capture inequalities between the poor and better off; nonlinear tradeoffs are allowed between and within the two dimensions of the UHC index; and all indicators are expressed such that scores run from 0 to 100, and higher scores are better. In a sample of 24 countries for which there are detailed information on UHC-inspired reforms, a cluster of high-performing countries emerges with UHC scores of between 79 and 84 (Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico and South Africa) and a cluster of low-performing countries emerges with UHC scores in the range 35-57 (Ethiopia, Guatemala, India, Indonesia and Vietnam). Countries have mostly improved their UHC scores between the earliest and latest years for which there are data-by about 5 points on average; however, the improvement has come from increases in receipt of key health interventions, not from reductions in the incidence of out-of-pocket payments on welfare
Beschreibung:1 Online-Ressource (67 p)
DOI:10.1596/1813-9450-7470