Toward Universal Health Coverage and Equity in Latin America and the Caribbean

Toward Universal Health Coverage and Equity in Latin America and the Caribbean PDF Author: Tania Dmytraczenko
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464804559
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
Over the past three decades, many countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have recognized health as a human right. Since the early 2000s, 46 million more people in the countries studied are covered by health programs with explicit guarantees of affordable care. Reforms have been accompanied by a rise in public spending for health, financed largely from general revenues that prioritized or explicitly target the population without capacity to pay. Political commitment has generally translated into larger budgets as well as passage of legislation that ring-fenced funding for health. Most countries have prioritized cost-effective primary care and adopted purchasing methods that incentivize efficiency and accountability for results, and that give stewards of the health sector greater leverage to steer providers to deliver on public health priorities. Evidence from the analysis of 54 household surveys corroborates that investments in extending coverage are yielding results. Though the poor still have worse health outcomes than the rich, disparities have narrowed considerably - particularly in the early stage of the life course. Countries have reached high levels of coverage and equity in utilization of maternal and child health services; coverage of noncommunicable disease interventions is not as high and service utilization is still skewed toward the better off. Catastrophic health expenditures have declined in most countries; the picture regarding equity, however, is mixed. While the rate of impoverishment owing to health-care expenditures is low and generally declining, 2-4 million people in the countries studied still fall below the poverty line after health spending. Efforts to systematically monitor quality of care in the region are still in their infancy. Nonetheless, a review of the literature reveals important shortcomings in quality of care, as well as substantial differences across subsystems. Improving quality of care and ensuring sustainability of investments in health remain an unfinished agenda.

Toward Universal Health Coverage and Equity in Latin America and the Caribbean

Toward Universal Health Coverage and Equity in Latin America and the Caribbean PDF Author: Tania Dmytraczenko
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464804559
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 247

Get Book Here

Book Description
Over the past three decades, many countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have recognized health as a human right. Since the early 2000s, 46 million more people in the countries studied are covered by health programs with explicit guarantees of affordable care. Reforms have been accompanied by a rise in public spending for health, financed largely from general revenues that prioritized or explicitly target the population without capacity to pay. Political commitment has generally translated into larger budgets as well as passage of legislation that ring-fenced funding for health. Most countries have prioritized cost-effective primary care and adopted purchasing methods that incentivize efficiency and accountability for results, and that give stewards of the health sector greater leverage to steer providers to deliver on public health priorities. Evidence from the analysis of 54 household surveys corroborates that investments in extending coverage are yielding results. Though the poor still have worse health outcomes than the rich, disparities have narrowed considerably - particularly in the early stage of the life course. Countries have reached high levels of coverage and equity in utilization of maternal and child health services; coverage of noncommunicable disease interventions is not as high and service utilization is still skewed toward the better off. Catastrophic health expenditures have declined in most countries; the picture regarding equity, however, is mixed. While the rate of impoverishment owing to health-care expenditures is low and generally declining, 2-4 million people in the countries studied still fall below the poverty line after health spending. Efforts to systematically monitor quality of care in the region are still in their infancy. Nonetheless, a review of the literature reveals important shortcomings in quality of care, as well as substantial differences across subsystems. Improving quality of care and ensuring sustainability of investments in health remain an unfinished agenda.

Litigating Health Rights

Litigating Health Rights PDF Author: Alicia Ely Yamin
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0986106208
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 446

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Book Description
The last fifteen years have seen a tremendous growth in the number of health rights cases focusing on issues such as access to health services and essential medications. This volume examines the potential of litigation as a strategy to advance the right to health by holding governments accountable for these obligations. It includes case studies from Costa Rica, South Africa, India, Brazil, Argentina and Colombia, as well as chapters that address cross-cutting themes. The authors analyze what types of services and interventions have been the subject of successful litigation and what remedies have been ordered by courts. Different chapters address the systemic impact of health litigation efforts, taking into account who benefits both directly and indirectly—and what the overall impacts on health equity are.

Crossing the Global Quality Chasm

Crossing the Global Quality Chasm PDF Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309477891
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 399

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Book Description
In 2015, building on the advances of the Millennium Development Goals, the United Nations adopted Sustainable Development Goals that include an explicit commitment to achieve universal health coverage by 2030. However, enormous gaps remain between what is achievable in human health and where global health stands today, and progress has been both incomplete and unevenly distributed. In order to meet this goal, a deliberate and comprehensive effort is needed to improve the quality of health care services globally. Crossing the Global Quality Chasm: Improving Health Care Worldwide focuses on one particular shortfall in health care affecting global populations: defects in the quality of care. This study reviews the available evidence on the quality of care worldwide and makes recommendations to improve health care quality globally while expanding access to preventive and therapeutic services, with a focus in low-resource areas. Crossing the Global Quality Chasm emphasizes the organization and delivery of safe and effective care at the patient/provider interface. This study explores issues of access to services and commodities, effectiveness, safety, efficiency, and equity. Focusing on front line service delivery that can directly impact health outcomes for individuals and populations, this book will be an essential guide for key stakeholders, governments, donors, health systems, and others involved in health care.

Beyond Survival

Beyond Survival PDF Author: Truman G. Packard
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 082136572X
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
'Beyond Survival' breaks new ground in the ongoing debate about health finance and financial protection from the costs of health care. The evidence and discussion support the need to consider financial protection, in addition to health status, as a policy objective when setting priorities for health systems. This book reviews the Latin American experience with health reform in the last 20 years and the fundamentals of health system financing, using new evidence to show the magnitude and mechanisms that determine the impoverishing effects of health events (diseases, accidents, and those of the life cycle). It provides options for policy makers on how to protect, and help household to protect themselves,against this impoverishment. The authors use empirical evidence from six case studies commissioned for this report, on Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, and Mexico. This book provides policy makers with a solid conceptual basis for decisions on the contents of mandatory health insurance benefit packages, choices of financing mechanisms, and the roles of public policy in this field. 'Beyond Survival' provides an in-depth analysis of, and organizational alternatives for, risk pooling and health insurance for financial protection. It analyzes the urgent need to extend risk pooling to the informal sector, the challenges for current social insurance arrangements, and options for policy makers to effectively extend risk pooling to the informal sector.

Latin America

Latin America PDF Author: Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022644306X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
“Latin America” is a concept firmly entrenched in its philosophical, moral, and historical meanings. And yet, Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo argues in this landmark book, it is an obsolescent racial-cultural idea that ought to have vanished long ago with the banishment of racial theory. Latin America: The Allure and Power of an Idea makes this case persuasively. Tenorio-Trillo builds the book on three interlocking steps: first, an intellectual history of the concept of Latin America in its natural historical habitat—mid-nineteenth-century redefinitions of empire and the cultural, political, and economic intellectualism; second, a serious and uncompromising critique of the current “Latin Americanism”—which circulates in United States–based humanities and social sciences; and, third, accepting that we might actually be stuck with “Latin America,” Tenorio-Trillo charts a path forward for the writing and teaching of Latin American history. Accessible and forceful, rich in historical research and specificity, the book offers a distinctive, conceptual history of Latin America and its many connections and intersections of political and intellectual significance. Tenorio-Trillo’s book is a masterpiece of interdisciplinary scholarship.

What's In, What's Out

What's In, What's Out PDF Author: Amanda Glassman
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 1944691057
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 449

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Book Description
Vaccinate children against deadly pneumococcal disease, or pay for cardiac patients to undergo lifesaving surgery? Cover the costs of dialysis for kidney patients, or channel the money toward preventing the conditions that lead to renal failure in the first place? Policymakers dealing with the realities of limited health care budgets face tough decisions like these regularly. And for many individuals, their personal health care choices are equally stark: paying for medical treatment could push them into poverty. Many low- and middle-income countries now aspire to universal health coverage, where governments ensure that all people have access to the quality health services they need without risk of impoverishment. But for universal health coverage to become reality, the health services offered must be consistent with the funds available—and this implies tough everyday choices for policymakers that could be the difference between life and death for those affected by any given condition or disease. The situation is particularly acute in low- and middle income countries where public spending on health is on the rise but still extremely low, and where demand for expanded services is growing rapidly. What’s In, What’s Out: Designing Benefits for Universal Health Coverage argues that the creation of an explicit health benefits plan—a defined list of services that are and are not available—is an essential element in creating a sustainable system of universal health coverage. With contributions from leading health economists and policy experts, the book considers the many dimensions of governance, institutions, methods, political economy, and ethics that are needed to decide what’s in and what’s out in a way that is fair, evidence-based, and sustainable over time.

Healthcare rights on trial in Latin America: A comparative study

Healthcare rights on trial in Latin America: A comparative study PDF Author: Rodolfo Gutiérrez Silva
Publisher: Fondo Editorial – Ediciones Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia
ISBN: 9587604784
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
A muchos pacientes se les niega el acceso a los servicios de salud y a los medicamentos en América Latina, por lo que los jueces tienen que intervenir. Esta tendencia de judicialización se ha acelerado durante la última década. En un sentido similar, la literatura existente sobre la justiciabilidad y judicialización del derecho a la salud se ocupa de la cuestión de si los jueces deben intervenir o no en la protección del derecho a la salud. Objetivo: Evaluar los desafíos derivados del litigio del Derecho a la Salud en Colombia, Argentina, Brasil y México. Metodología: Marco analítico y metodológico cualitativo, descriptivo y comparativo. Incluye una revisión bibliográfica y 37 entrevistas semiestructuradas a jueces, académicos y funcionarios gubernamentales. Además, se realizó un análisis jurisprudencial de la jurisprudencia más reciente en los 4 países mediante análisis de contenido. Resultados: En los cuatro países estudiados persiste un enfoque moderado orientado a las repercusiones en el litigio y, preocupado por las consecuencias del proceso de judicialización. Esto supone, en primer lugar, la incorporación de algunos límites y condiciones en el reconocimiento del derecho a la salud por parte de los Tribunales y, en segundo lugar, en términos generales, que las sentencias no están teniendo en cuenta las causas estructurales que afectan a la litigiosidad. Conclusiones: Los tribunales deberían avanzar hacia un equilibrio intencional en el reconocimiento, los remedios, la supervisión y la evaluación de las sentencias. Esto implica ser más reflexivos y estratégicos que reactivos y pasivos. En otras palabras, cuanto más inmaduro sea el sistema sanitario y más causas estructurales se perciban, más reflexivos y estratégicos deberían ser los Tribunales y más se debería promover el reconocimiento, la protección, la supervisión y la evaluación. Los Estados también deben adoptar medidas contundentes contra las causas estructurales y deben hacer operativo un enfoque de la salud más práctico y basado en los derechos, de manera tangible.

Will to Live

Will to Live PDF Author: João Biehl
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691143854
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
Will to Live tells how Brazil, against all odds, became the first developing country to universalize access to life-saving AIDS therapies--a breakthrough made possible by an unexpected alliance of activists, government reformers, development agencies, and the pharmaceutical industry. But anthropologist João Biehl also tells why this policy, hailed as a model worldwide, has been so difficult to implement among poor Brazilians with HIV/AIDS, who are often stigmatized as noncompliant or untreatable, becoming invisible to the public. More broadly, Biehl examines the political economy of pharmaceuticals that lies behind large-scale treatment rollouts, revealing the possibilities and inequalities that come with a magic bullet approach to health care. By moving back and forth between the institutions shaping the Brazilian response to AIDS and the people affected by the disease, Biehl has created a book of unusual vividness, scope, and detail. At the core of Will to Live is a group of AIDS patients--unemployed, homeless, involved with prostitution and drugs--that established a makeshift health service. Biehl chronicled the personal lives of these people for over ten years and Torben Eskerod represents them here in more than one hundred stark photographs. Ethnography, social medicine, and art merge in this unique book, illuminating the care and agency needed to extend life amid perennial violence. Full of lessons for the future, Will to Live promises to have a lasting influence in the social sciences and in the theory and practice of global public health.

Research for Universal Health Coverage

Research for Universal Health Coverage PDF Author: Christopher Dye
Publisher: World Health Organization
ISBN: 9241564598
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
"The World Health Report: research for universal health coverage" focuses on the importance of research in advancing progress towards universal health coverage. In addition, it identifies the benefits of increased investment in health research by low- and middle-income countries using case studies from around the world, and proposes ways to further strengthen this type of research.

Health Systems Financing

Health Systems Financing PDF Author: World Health Organization
Publisher: World Health Organization
ISBN: 9241564024
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
"This World Health Report was produced under the overall direction of Carissa Etienne ... and Anarfi Asamoa Baah ... The principal writers were David B. Evans ... [et al] -- t.p. verso.