UHC Advances Globally, Financial Hardship Still Uneven

Since 2000, significant progress has been made in expanding health service coverage and reducing financial hardship globally. The World Health Organization reports that the universal healthcare coverage index rose from 51 index points in 2000 to 71 in 2023. During this time, the percentage of the global population facing financial hardship due to out-of-pocket health costs dropped from 34 percent in 2000 to 26 percent in 2022.

However, the pace of progress has slowed since 2015, putting the world off track to meet the Sustainable Development Goal of achieving UHC for all by 2030. Despite the advances, the latest available data reveals that as of 2023, 4.6 billion people worldwide still lacked access to essential health services, while as of 2022, 2.1 billion faced financial hardship due to health expenses.

Among the gains made, low-income countries have seen the fastest improvements since 2015, although they still face the greatest gaps in coverage. Every WHO region has made progress in health service coverage, but only half saw a reduction in the proportion of the population incurring financial hardship between 2015 and 2022. Notable reductions in hardship were observed in Africa, South-East Asia and the Western Pacific. In contrast, the Americas, Eastern Mediterranean and European regions showed no improvement in financial hardship, though they started from lower baseline levels due to earlier progress.

The African and Western Pacific regions saw the largest improvements in service capacity and access, while the Americas and European regions experiences setbacks in access to services, despite maintaining high coverage levels of above 80 percent. Additionally, WHO data highlights that improvements in service coverage has been uneven across different health indicators. While progress in combating infectious diseases has been rapid, improvements in noncommunicable diseases have been slower.