Has universal health insurance reduced socioeconomic inequalities in urban and rural health service use in Thailand?

Vasoontara Yiengprugsawan · Gordon A. Carmichael · Lynette L.-Y. Lim · Sam‐ang Seubsman · Adrian C. Sleigh

37 citations0/0 files storedHealth & Place

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Healthcare Systems and Reforms Healthcare Policy and Management Public Health and Social Inequalities

Abstract

This study analyses urban and rural health service use before and after the introduction of the Universal Coverage Scheme (UCS). Using data from the Thai national health surveys of 2001 and 2005, the study utilises age-sex adjusted concentration indices to measure within-area differences in use of health services among populations distinguished by socioeconomic status. Between 2001 and 2005, the UCS substantially reduced Thailand's uninsured population (from 42.5% to 7.0% in urban areas and from 24.9% to 2.7% in rural areas). The implementation of the UCS changed patterns of health services use, particularly for rural people and the urban poor, by placing greater emphasis on primary healthcare. Relevant policy recommendations should focus on continued improvement of primary health services, and ensuring adequate and timely referrals to secondary and tertiary health services when the need arises.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 37 citations exist upstream.

References

1991On the measurement of inequalities in health 1997Socioeconomic inequalities in health: Measurement, computation, and statistical inference 2002A glossary for health inequalities 2004The bounds of the concentration index when the variable of interest is binary, with an application to immunization inequality 2007Catastrophic payments for health care in Asia 2004Inequality Growth and Poverty in an Era of Liberalization and Globalization 2007Catastrophic and poverty impacts of health payments: results from national household surveys in Thailand 2008Urban health in developing countries: What do we know and where do we go?

Cited by

2023Socioeconomic inequalities in health outcomes among Thai older population in the era of Universal Health Coverage: trends and decomposition analysis 2020Examining the Urban and Rural Healthcare Progress in Big Cities of China: Analysis of Monitoring Data in Dalian from 2008 to 2017 2022A Review of Recent Developments and Future Challenges in the Implementation of Universal Health Coverage Policy Framework in Some Countries 2012Comparing the socioeconomic status – Health gradient among adults 50 and older across rural and urban areas of Thailand in 1994 and 2007

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.