Universal Health Coverage and Access to care for Non Communicable Diseases in Six Developing Economics

Abstract

Background: The growing prevalence of non-communicable diseases in many low-and-middle-income countries has become a source of concern. However, the World Bank and the World Health Organization have strongly advocated the implementation of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) as a promising pathway to improve population health for the resource constraint economies. newlineMethods: This study used the household-and-facility level data conducted by the Demographic and Health Surveys program for Afghanistan, Congo Democratic Republic, Haiti, Malawi, Senegal, and Tanzania to investigate the association of health insurance coverage with health services coverage for diabetes, cardiovascular, and respiratory diseases. The techniques of geospatial analysis, linear regression, and confidence intervals are applied in the analysis of the data. newlineResult: Across the countries of this study, the estimates show that the rate of health insurance coverage is barely 22 percent, and only 3927 of the health facilities provide services for diabetes, 4488 have services coverage for cardiovascular diseases, along with 4252 facilities with services coverage for respiratory diseases. Overall, health insurance coverage is not significantly associated with health services coverage for diabetes, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. Similarly, private facilities outperformed public facilities in the provision of both diagnosis and management of these chronic conditions. newlineConclusion: Both health insurance coverage and facility-level services coverage for diabetes, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases are below the levels required to accomplish the UHC goals and to lower the burden of NCDs in the countries of this study. newlinePolicy Implication: Massive investment into high-quality health systems could be essential if significant progress is to be made particularly for attaining the goals of UHC in the SDGs era. newlineKeywords: Universal health coverage, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases newline