Universal Health Coverage for Non-communicable Diseases and Health Equity: Reflections on the Role of Ideas and Democratic Decision-Making; Comment on "Universal Health Coverage for Non-Communicable Diseases and Health Equity: Lessons from Australian Primary Healthcare".

Content Provider	Europe PMC
Author	Paremoer, Lauren
Copyright Year	2022
Abstract	Fisher et al have published a thought-provoking article exploring the complex relationship between universal health coverage (UHC) and equity. This commentary builds on two of the lessons they highlight: the importance of ideas in determining how exactly UHC advances equity, and the political difficulties of addressing the commercial determinants of health. I argue that equity in UHC can be advanced through interventions that address popular prejudices against public health systems, greater emphasis on structural and commercial drivers of ill-health in health professionals’ training, and by ensuring meaningful public participation in decision-making about the institutionalisation and management of UHC. These strategies are important for ensuring that the political, power-laden nature of concepts such as "universality", "health" and "care" are explicitly acknowledged and publicly debated – rather than continuing the current trend of allowing technocrats to reduce UHC to a matter of efficiently and expeditiously financing curative healthcare services.
Page Count	3
Journal	International Journal of Health Policy and Management
Volume Number	11
PubMed Central reference number	PMC9309944
Issue Number	5
PubMed reference number	34634889
e-ISSN	23225939
DOI	10.34172/ijhpm.2021.117
Language	English
Publisher	Kerman University of Medical Sciences
Publisher Date	2022-05-01
Access Restriction	Open
Rights License	This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2022 The Author(s); Published by Kerman University of Medical Sciences
Subject Keyword	Social Determinants of Health Universal Health Coverage Health Equity Health Governance
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law Health (social science) Health Policy Health Information Management Leadership and Management