Progress toward Universal Health Coverage in Latin America and the Caribbean: Outcomes, Utilization, and Financial Protection

Type Journal Article - Toward Universal Health Coverage and Equity in Latin America and the Caribbean: Evidence from Selected Countries
Title Progress toward Universal Health Coverage in Latin America and the Caribbean: Outcomes, Utilization, and Financial Protection
Author(s)
Publication (Day/Month/Year) 2015
Page numbers 81
URL http://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/abs/10.1596/978-1-4648-0454-0_ch4
Abstract
Presents the results of a measurement of progress toward universal health coverage (UHC) in nine Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) countries by describing population coverage by different schemes and analyzing how health outcomes, service coverage, and financial protection measures have changed over time and across socioeconomic groups. The region has made considerable progress implementing schemes aimed at expanding UHC in the past quarter-century, with measureable improvements in equity. Socioeconomic gradients clearly remain in health status, with the poor having worse observed health outcomes than the rich, but disparities have narrowed, particularly for early stages of the life course. Countries have reached high levels of coverage for maternal and child health services, but services remain pro-rich. Coverage of noncommunicable disease interventions remains lower than maternal and child health services, and service utilization remains skewed toward the better off. Primary care services in general prove more equally distributed across income groups than specialized care.

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