This systematic review aims to synthesize the published evidence of the extent to which health financing schemes aimed at extending universal health coverage (UHC) to informal workers (IWs) in low- and middle-income countries in Southeast Asia have improved utilization of essential health services and financial protection of IWs.
Findings suggest that countries have taken a variety of approaches to extend UHC to IWs and implemented schemes with different revenue raising, pooling, and purchasing provisions. Those with explicit political commitments toward UHC that adopted universalist approaches reached the highest coverage of IWs. Results for financial protection indicators were mixed, though indicated overall downward trends in out-of-pocket expenditures, catastrophic health expenditure, and impoverishment. Publications generally reported increased utilization rates through the introduced health financing schemes.
