ArticleBMC health services research2023
Measurement of unmet healthcare needs to assess progress on universal health coverage - exploring a novel approach based on household surveys.
Article in BMC health services research, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 35 citations in OpenAlex.
- Beyond global comparability: why universal health coverage indicators must reflect national contexts.Journal of global health · 2026Article
- Development and Validation of the Primary Care Needs Assessment (PCNA) Questionnaire: A Participatory Multidimensional Approach to Identifying Health Needs.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Financial impact of non-communicable diseases on households with older adults in india: a mixed methods study.BMC geriatrics · 2026Article
- Understanding Unmet Healthcare Needs in Nigeria: Implications for Universal Health Coverage.Health services insights · 2025Article
- Performance of health and wellness centre in providing primary care services in Chhattisgarh, India.BMC primary care · 2024Article
- Un/met: a mixed-methods study on primary healthcare needs of the poorest population in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan.International journal for equity in health · 2024Article
- Kerala's progress towards universal health coverage: the road travelled and beyond.International journal for equity in health · 2024Article
- Equity and unmet need of non-communicable diseases services in Saudi Arabia using a National Household Survey (2019).BMC health services research · 2024Article
- Unmet Health Care Needs of the Older Population in European Countries Based on Indicators Available in the Eurostat Database.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Progress towards universal health coverage in the context of mental disorders in India: evidence from national sample survey data.International journal of mental health systems · 2023Article
- Better data on unmet healthcare need can strengthen global monitoring of universal health coverage.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundUniversal Health Coverage (UHC) aims to ensure universal access to quality healthcare according to health needs. The extent to which population health needs are met should be a key measure for progress on UHC. The indicators in use for measuring access mostly relate to physical accessibility or insurance coverage. Or, utilization of services is taken as indirect measure for access but it is assessed against only the perceived healthcare needs. The unperceived needs do not get taken into account. 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.
methodsA household survey was conducted in Chhattisgarh state of India, covering a multi-stage sample of 3153 individuals. Healthcare need was measured in terms of perceived needs which would be self-reported and unperceived needs where clinical measurement supplemented the interview response. Estimation of unperceived healthcare needs was limited to three tracer conditions- hypertension, diabetes and depression. Multivariate analysis was conducted to find the determinants of the various measures of the perceived and unperceived needs.
resultsOf the surveyed individuals, 10.47% reported perceived healthcare needs for acute ailments in the last 15 days. 10.62% individuals self-reported suffering from chronic conditions. 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. On an average, patients with chronic ailments received only half the medication doses required annually. The latent need was very high for chronic ailments. 47.42% of individuals above 30 years age never had blood pressure measured. 95% of those identified with likelihood of depression had not sought any healthcare and they did not know they could be suffering from depression.
conclusionTo 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. Appropriately designed household surveys offer a significant potential to allow its periodic measurement. Their limitations in measuring the 'inappropriate care' may necessitate supplementation with qualitative methods.
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