Health experts from the Americas and worldwide are meeting this week at the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) to discuss strategies for advancing universal health coverage in the region's countries and PAHO/WHO technical support for these efforts.
Washington, D.C., 12 September 2013 (PAHO/WHO) — Health experts from the Americas and worldwide are meeting this week at the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) to discuss strategies for advancing universal health coverage in the region's countries and PAHO/WHO technical support for these efforts.
Participants in the two-day PAHO Strategic Consultative Meeting on Achieving Universal Health Coverage in the Americas (12-13 September) include representatives from academia, nongovernmental organizations, foundations, and international development institutions. They will examine obstacles being faced by countries in the Americas as well as advances made toward universal health coverage.
Universal health coverage seeks to ensure that all people obtain the health services they need without risk of financial ruin. Advocates view this as essential to improving health, reducing poverty and inequity, and promoting overall economic and social development.
A number of countries in the Americas have embraced universal health coverage as a national goal and have advanced to different degrees toward its achievement. Their experiences provide evidence on such issues as the levels of health spending needed to achieve universal coverage, best options for ensuring financial protection against catastrophic illness, and the need for normative frameworks, governance mechanisms, and institutional capacity to ensure effective stewardship of health systems. This week's meeting will examine the diversity of experiences within the Americas based on countries' different social and economic conditions and their different health systems.
The Consultative Meeting on Achieving Universal Health Coverage in the Americas was organized by PAHO/WHO with collaboration of the Harvard Global Equity Initiative, and with support from the Rockefeller Foundation.
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