![]() ![]() Whereas it is relatively straightforward to measure the numbers who have accessed specific services, it becomes difficult to measure the total health care need or those who had health needs but were unable to access appropriate services. There are many challenges with measuring healthcare needs. Knowing unmet needs and their magnitude can be useful in deciding policies and planning for the required services. Hence, the proportion of the population in need of health care which is able to access effective or quality healthcare, should be key measure for assessing progress on UHC. Their limitations in measuring the ‘inappropriate care’ may necessitate supplementation with qualitative methods.Įnsuring that all those in need of healthcare are able to access quality healthcare according to the need and without financial hardship is the central aim of universal health coverage (UHC). Appropriately designed household surveys offer a significant potential to allow its periodic measurement. To assess progress on UHC more meaningfully, better methods are needed to measure unmet healthcare needs, taking into account both the perceived and unperceived needs, as well as incomplete care and inappropriate care. 95% of those identified with likelihood of depression had not sought any healthcare and they did not know they could be suffering from depression. 47.42% of individuals above 30 years age never had blood pressure measured. The latent need was very high for chronic ailments. On an average, patients with chronic ailments received only half the medication doses required annually. 12.75% of those with acute ailment and 18.40% with chronic ailments received no treatment, while 27.83% and 9.07% respectively received treatment from unqualified providers. 10.62% individuals self-reported suffering from chronic conditions. Of the surveyed individuals, 10.47% reported perceived healthcare needs for acute ailments in the last 15 days. Multivariate analysis was conducted to find the determinants of the various measures of the perceived and unperceived needs. Estimation of unperceived healthcare needs was limited to three tracer conditions- hypertension, diabetes and depression. ![]() Healthcare need was measured in terms of perceived needs which would be self-reported and unperceived needs where clinical measurement supplemented the interview response. MethodsĪ household survey was conducted in Chhattisgarh state of India, covering a multi-stage sample of 3153 individuals. The present study was aimed at demonstrating an approach for measuring the unmet healthcare needs using household survey data as an additional measure of UHC. The unperceived needs do not get taken into account. Or, utilization of services is taken as indirect measure for access but it is assessed against only the perceived healthcare needs. The indicators in use for measuring access mostly relate to physical accessibility or insurance coverage. The extent to which population health needs are met should be a key measure for progress on UHC. Universal Health Coverage (UHC) aims to ensure universal access to quality healthcare according to health needs. ![]()
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