The Universal Health Coverage Global Monitoring Report 2023 released by the WHO Division of Data, Analytics and Delivery for Impact, WHO Division of Universal Health Coverage/Life Course and the World Bank’s Health, Nutrition and Population Global Practice.
The 2023 report underscores the extent to which global progress has stalled towards UHC since the beginning of the SDG era in 2015, and especially in recent years. As of 2021 over 4.5 billion people – or more than half the world’s population – still lacked full coverage for essential health services. It also illustrates worsening financial hardship due to out-of-pocket health spending, which has a particularly devastating impact for those living at or near the poverty line. As of 2019, just prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, approximately 2 billion people worldwide were pushed or further pushed into poverty due to healthcare costs, including more than 300 million living in extreme poverty.
