title: Universal Health Coverage and the Right to Health: From Legal Principle to Post-2015 Indicators.
abstract: Universal Health Coverage (UHC) is widely considered one of the key components for the post-2015 health goal. The idea of UHC is rooted in the right to health, set out in the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. Based on the Covenant and the General Comment of the Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, which is responsible for interpreting and monitoring the Covenant, we identify 6 key legal principles that should underpin UHC based on the right to health: minimum core obligation, progressive realization, cost-effectiveness, shared responsibility, participatory decision making, and prioritizing vulnerable or marginalized groups. Yet, although these principles are widely accepted, they are criticized for not being specific enough to operationalize as post-2015 indicators for reaching the target of UHC. In this article, we propose measurable and achievable indicators for UHC based on the right to health that can be used to inform the ongoing negotiations on Sustainable Development Goals. However, we identify 3 major challenges that face any exercise in setting indicators post-2015: data availability as an essential criterion, the universality of targets, and the adaptation of global goals to local populations.
authors.affiliation: Edinburgh Medical School, University of Edinburgh, Teviot Place, Edinburgh, UK devi.sridhar@ed.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Devi
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Sridhar
authors.affiliation: European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, England.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: McKee
authors.affiliation: Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium.
authors.forename: Gorik
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ooms
authors.affiliation: Institute for Public Health, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Claudia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Beiersmann
authors.affiliation: O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, Georgetown University, Washington DC.
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Friedman
authors.affiliation: School of Population Health, University of Queensland, Queensland, Australia.
authors.forename: Hebe
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Gouda
authors.affiliation: School of Population Health, University of Queensland, Queensland, Australia.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Hill
authors.affiliation: Institute for Public Health, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Albrecht
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Jahn
mesh_terms: D006806:Human Rights; D006801:Humans; D019984:Quality Indicators, Health Care; D019472:Universal Health Insurance / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*
keywords: global health law; right to health; universal health coverage