Making fair choices on the path to Universal Health Coverage

Countries around the world are moving towards Universal Health Coverage. Along the way, they face difficult choices. For the past three years, LSE Philosopher Alex Voorhoeve has been part of a World Health Organization consultative group offering guidance on how to make these choices fairly.

Publications

The group’s report, Making fair choices on the path to universal health coverage, was published in May 2014.

Director-General of the WHO, Dr Margaret Chan, wrote an editorial piece on the report in Health  Systems & Reform, Volume 2, Issue 1, 2016.

The report was featured in an Editorial in the Bulletin of the World Health Organisation (2014) 92: 389.

The report was also Reviewed in Salute Internationale.info, June 18, 2014.

• Symposium on the Report in the journal Health Economics, Policy and Law:
  • Introduction. (Published [journal access required]; pre-typesetting version [access free]) Albert Weale.
  • Précis of Making Fair Choices on the Path to Universal Health Coverage. (Published [journal access required]; pre-typesetting version [access free]). Alex Voorhoeve, Trygve Ottersen and Ole Fritjof Norheim.
  • The Administrator’s Perspective. (Published [journal access required]; pre-typesetting version.) Addis Tamire Woldemariam.
  • Information Will be the Key to Successful Implementation. (Published [journal access required]; pre-typesetting version). Peter Littlejohns and Kalipso Chalkidou.
  • Reasonable Disagreement and the Generally Unacceptable. (Published [journal access required]; (pre-typesetting version). Benedict Rumbold and James Wilson.
  • The Path from Nowhere? (Published [journal access required]; (pre-typesetting version) Albert Weale.
  • Response to Our Critics. (Published [journal access required]; (pre-typesetting version). Alex Voorhoeve, Trygve Ottersen and Ole Fritjof Norheim.

Presentations

The report was launched at LSE on 1 May 2014. The launch featured responses from leading academics and the Director-General of the Ethiopian Ministry of Health. Further details here.

The report’s recommendations have also formed the basis of a number of other presentations at academic and governmental institutions around the world:

• Basis of a “Writeshop” at the Pan-American Health Organisation in Washington, D.C. on May 5-9 2014, with participants from the World Bank, PAHO, WHO, and departments of health from several countries. The purpose was to develop ten illustrative country case studies (forthcoming). Details here.
• Center for Global Development, Washington D.C., May 6, 2014.
• Presentation at PAHO with comments by Amanda Glassman, Center for Global Development, May 8, 2014.
• Webinar via PAHO at May 8, 2014. Details here. You can view this webinar in English and in Spanish.
• Priorities 2020 meeting in Bergen, May 11-13, 2014.
• UCL & KCL Social Value Workshop, London, May 23, 2014.
• WHO, Geneva, June 12, 2014.
• Global Summit of National Bioethics Committees, Session on Universal Health Coverage, with comments on the report from National Ethics Committees of Mexico, Sri Lanka, Bolivia, Cuba, Tunisia and Sweden, June 22-23, 2014. Details here.
• World Congress on Bioethics, Session on the Ethics of Universal Health Coverage, June 24-27. Details here.
• Chilean Institute of Nutrition, Santiago, Chile, 6 October 2014.
• National Health Technology Committee, Ministry of Health, Santiago, Chile, November 19 in an event on “Procesos en evaluación de tecnologías sanitarias: desde la evidencia a la recomendación”.
• Global Health and Population Frontiers Seminar, December 9, 2014, Harvard University. Details here.
• Medsin Conference: Global Health: The Bottom Line, March 8, 2015, London.

Political impact of the report

• The Report formed the basis of a question to the European Commission in the European Parliament by Nicola Caputo on January 6, 2015.

Media and Press

• Notice of the report on Health Space Asia, June 2014.
• Notice in Health, Education, Social Protection News & Notes, June 2014.