Universal Health Coverage in the Global South: New models of healthcare and their implications for citizenship, solidarity and the public good.

Abstract

In 2010, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a call for all countries to move towards ‘Universal Health Coverage’ (UHC). The WHO defines UHC as «ensuring that all people can use the promotive, preventative, curative and rehabilitative health services they need, of sufficient quality to be effective, while ensuring that the use of these services does not expose the user to financial hardship» . UHC is described by the WHO’s director as «the single most powerful concept public health has to offer» and is included under the Sustainable Development Goals. The move towards UHC offers a unique opportunity for interdisciplinary research to study how governments, policy makers, health workers, patients and citizens in various countries are addressing questions of health equity, economic inequality, social solidarity and the public good. In this article I outline the issues at stake in the policy focus on UHC and argue that UHC opens up a challenging new research field in medical anthropology.