World Health Day: how is Latin America doing in health coverage?
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In this celebration of World Health Day, WHO invites us to ask how international health coverage is going, how is Latin America?
About the international health day of this year, 2019, which is celebrated on April 7, the World Health Organization (WHO) chose the International Health Coverage as its central theme. The purpose is that quality health is available in every corner of the world, providing care, medicines, and treatments.
Leer en español: Día Mundial de la Salud: ¿cómo va América Latina en cobertura sanitaria?
To do this, WHO published an infographic explaining what International Health Coverage is. 6 questions cover this topic, to determine the quality of health in each country. The objective is to determine how health systems work, how the country is in access to medicines and care, what public policies are in force and how to access health, among others.
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Next, in LatinAmerican Post we make a tour through Latin America to show how the region is in International Health Coverage during this celebration in 2019.
The scientific journal The Lancet, published in 2017 the results of a study that collected the health systems of the countries for 25 years, from 1990 to 2015. This study has subsequently served to show the advances in the health of the nations, due to the complexity that he presented when taking into account 25 years. The results of this study showed growth of almost 15 points in Latin America, going from 50.1 to 64.7.
In general terms, like diseases, for example, most countries in the region are usually in the middle. This is the case of Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, Panama, among others. While countries like Ecuador and Bolivia are in the last places.
According to a study by the Inter-American Development Bank, published in 2018, although the performance of health systems in Latin America have grown, they still have much to improve, and the gap with Europe is huge.
Although studies show improvements in the region concerning past years, geographical factors and political and social inequality are the biggest impediments to better health systems and bring us closer to European countries.
LatinAmerican Post | Juliana Suárez
Translated from "Día Mundial de la Salud: ¿cómo va América Latina en cobertura sanitaria?"
