Healthcare Access and Life Outcomes

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines Universal Health Coverage (UHC) as ensuring that all people have access to the full range of quality health services they need, when and where they need them, without financial hardship — a definition operationalized through the WHO's UHC Service Coverage Index, which tracks essential service coverage across reproductive, maternal, and child health, infectious disease control, noncommunicable disease management, and service capacity. The WHO's and World Bank's joint 2023 Global Monitoring Report on UHC found that at least half the world's population still lacked full coverage of essential health services, and that more than 1 billion people worldwide continued to face catastrophic health spending — health costs exceeding 10% of household income — each year, a burden that falls disproportionately on households in low- and lower-middle-income countries lacking pooled health insurance or tax-funded universal systems.