To ensure equitable access to necessary care and accelerate progress towards universal health coverage (UHC), measuring the gap between the services that people need and those they actually receive is crucial.
The WHO Centre for Health Development (WHO Kobe Centre – WKC) supported a study that measured the prevalence of self-reported ‘unmet needs’ for healthcare and social care across European countries. This study is a supplemental analysis to a project that estimated unmet health and social care needs in 83 low-, middle- and high-income countries.
The key findings from the data from European countries are as follows:
- The prevalence of unmet healthcare needs (i.e. self-reported forgone care) among persons 15+ years old in 27 countries ranged from 5.9% (Cyprus) to 42.4% (Portugal), with an overall prevalence of 24.4%.
- Long waiting time was the main barrier to healthcare access in most countries, followed by cost and transportation challenges/distance.
- The prevalence of unmet social care needs (i.e. self-reported need for care) among those 65 and above in 28 countries was 35.4% for activities of daily living (ADL) needs and 30.8% for instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) needs, respectively.
- In nearly all countries, respondents aged 70+ years perceived higher unmet ADL/IADL needs than those aged 65–69 years.
Estimating the need for healthcare and the barriers to accessing health services poses challenges, particularly in low-middle-income countries, as such indicators are often unavailable in household survey data. “We analysed data from the harmonized European Health Interview Survey in this study. This infrastructure enables drawing comparable estimates of unmet healthcare and social care needs across the European population. There is a significant need to establish similar infrastructure in low- and middle-income countries to monitor persistent challenges related to unmet care needs”, says Dr Nawi Ng, Professor of Global Health at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, who led this analysis.